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ALFRED TENNYSON. 



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TWENTIETH CENTURY TEXT-BOOKS 



TENNYSON'S 

IDYLLS OF THE KING 

THE COMING OF ARTHUR • GARETH AND LYNETTE 

LANCELOT AND ELAINE • THE HOLY GRAIL 

THE PASSING OF ARTHUR 



EDITED 
WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES 

BY 

JOSEPH VILLIERS DENNEY 

PROFESSOR IN THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY 




D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 

NEW YORK CHICAGO 



A, 



Copyright, 1911, 1916, bt 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 



4 






APR -4 1916 

©C1.A4275U7 
1^ I . 



PREFACE 



Appreciation of Tennyson's "Idylls of the King" 
begins with an understanding of the significance, eth- 
ical and aesthetic, of ' ' The Coming of Arthur ' ' and ' ' The 
Passing of Arthur. ' ' In relation to these two, the inter- 
vening Idylls are as specific instances to general truth. 
The "Coming" and the "Passing" not only annotate 
each other; they annotate the series of Idylls. In this 
edition, therefore, the introductory matter and the notes 
give especial attention to the " Coming " as furnish- 
ing, with the " Passing," the key to the intent of the 
whole. 

The editor hopes that the division of each Idyll into 
sections, as suggested in the notes, will prove serviceable 
in keeping the theme of the series in clear view. Such 
aesthetic values as are not easily apprehended by first 
readers have been pointed out in the notes ; but these, as 
well as the other notes that deal with history and mat- 
ters of fact, may be neglected by the initiated. 

Constant reference has been made to Malory not only 
that the beauty of Tennyson 's workmanship may be made 
apparent, but also that an abiding interest may be 
aroused in mediaeval story. 

June 1, 1911. 



CONTENTS 



Page 

A BRIEF BIBLIOGRAPHY ix 

INTRODUCTION 

I. Alfred Tennyson xi 

II. TheGrowthof the "Idylls of the King" . . xxi 

III. Sources of the Idylls xxii 

IV. The Arthur Story xxiii 

V. The Meaning of the Idylls xxv 

VI. The Idylls as a "Poem of the Year and the Soul" . xxx 

VII. The Verse of the Idylls xxxi 

IDYLLS OF THE KING 

The Coming of Arthur ^tf^ 1 

Gareth and Ltnette 18 

"Lancelot and Elaine 66 

The Holy Grail Ill 

The Passing of Arthur 143 

NOTES 159 

vii 



A BRIEF BIBLIOGRAPHY 



Biographical : 

Tennyson, Lord Hallam: Alfred, Lord Tennyson, A Me- 
moir. Macmillan. 

Lyall, Sir A. : Life of Tennyson. (English Men of Letters 
Series.) Macmillan. 

Sources and Source-treatments: 

Baring-Gould: Curious Myths of the Middle Ages. 

Croker : Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ire- 
land. 

Guerber: Stories from the Wagner Operas. 

Guest, Lady Charlotte: Mahinogion. Macmillan. 

Macallum, M. W. : Tennyson's Idylls of the King and Ar- 
thurian Story from the Sixteenth Century. Macmillan. 

Malory, Sir Thomas: Le Morte D' Arthur. Macmillan. 

Maynadier, H. : The Arthur of the English Poets. Hough- 
ton Mifflin Co. 

Newell, William W. : King Arthur and the Table Round. 
(Tales chiefly after the Old French of Chrestien de 
Troyes.) Houghton Mifflin Co. 

Rhys, J.: The Arthurian Legend. Clarendon Press. 

Six Old English Chronicles. (Bohn Library.) Macmillan. 

General Critiques of Tennyson: 

Brooke, S. : Tennyson, His Art and Relation to Modern 

Life. Ibister. 
Dixon, W. M. : A Tennyson Primer. Dodd, Mead & Co. 
Gwynn, S.: Tennyson, A Critical Study. Blackie. 

ix 



X A BEIEF BIBLIOGKAPHY 

HiLLis, N. D.: Great Books as Life-Teachers, pp. 153-177. 

MoELEY, H.: English Writers, iii, 6. 

Smyser, Wm. Emory: Tennysori. (Modern Poets and Chris- 
tian Teaching Series.) Eaton & Mains. 

Stedman, E. C. : Victorian Poets. Houghton Mifflin Co. 

Tainsh, E. C: a Study of the Works of Tennyson. Mac- 
millan. 

Van Dyke, H. : Poems of Tennyson. Ginn & Co. 

Van Dyke, H.: The Poetry of Tennyson. Charles Scrib- 
ner's Sons. 

The Idylls: 

Alford, H. : Allegory of the Idylls. (Contemporary Review, 

Jan. 1870.) 
Davidson, H. A.: The Study of the Idylls. (Cambridge, 

Mass.) 
Elsdale, H. : Studies in the Idylls. Kegan Paul. 
Jones, Richard. : The Growth of the Idylls of the King. Lip- 

pincott. 
LiTTLEDALE, H. I Essays on TennysorCs Idylls of the King, 

Macmillan. 
Pallen, C. B. : Meaning of the Idylls of the King. American 

Book Co. 
Patmore, C. : The Idylls of the King. (Edinburgh Review, 

July, 1859.) 

Other English Poetical Treatments of Arthurian Story; 

Arnold, Matthew: Tristram and Iseult. 

Bulwer-Lytton : King Arthur. 

Hawker, Stephen : The Quest of the Sangreal. 

HovEY, Richard: The Quest of Merlin; The Marriage of 

Guinevere; The Birth of Galahad; Taliesin. 
Morris, William: A Defence of Guinevere; King Arthur's 

Tomb; Sir Galahad; A Christian Mystery; The Chapel 

in Lyonesse. 
Swinburne, Algernon: Tristram of Lyonesse; The Tale 

of Balan. 



INTRODUCTION 



I. ALFRED TENNYSON 



Alfred Tennyson was born August 6, 1809, at Som- 
ersby, a small village in Lincolnshire, England. He was 
the fourth of twelve children. His father was rector of 
the parish, and the home was a home of refinement and 
good taste. There were plenty of books and music, and 
there were games both indoor and out, including jousts 
and tourneys and play of knightly adventures, such as 
imaginative children enjoy, who hear and read and tell 
and enact good stories. There was also a quiet, safe, and 
beautiful countryside in which growing children might 
range at will. The Tennyson boys are described by a 
neighbor as ''running about from one place to another, 
known to everybody, and with ways of their own; they 
all wrote verses, they never had any pocket-money, they 
took long walks at night-time, and they were decidedly 
exclusive." Alfred's intimate knowledge and love of 
nature began with the early years at Somersby, and 
his love of the sea with visits to the coast, whither the 
family went each summer. "You see in his verses," 
wrote Carlyle, years afterw^ards, to Emerson, ''that he 
is a native of ' moated granges, ' and green, fat pastures, 
not of mountains and their torrents and storms." 

The rector was a good comrade to his sons, as well as 
their principal teacher. With a little help from the 
school at Louth, he prepared them for Trinity College, 

xi 



xii INTRODUCTION 

Cambridge, which Charles and Alfred entered in 1828. 
The preceding year they had published anonymously 
* ' Poems of Two Brothers, ' ' a volume which showed that 
they had imitated to some purpose their boyhood favor- 
ites, Thomson, Scott, and Byron. At Cambridge, in 
1829, Alfred won the Chancellor's gold medal with the 
poem * ' Timbuctoo. " Though not a brilliant student, 
Alfred was well-read in the Greek and Latin literatures, 
and in English poetry as well, admiring Milton espe- 
cially. He was also interested in history, and in some of 
the sciences. 

He enjoyed abundant health and physical vigor, often 
surpassing his companions in feats of strength. One 
day, it is said, he picked up a pony and carried it bodily 
across the lawn, much ^ to the astonishment of the on- 
lookers. In the game of hurling crowbars he was easily 
first. He is described in his Cambridge days as '' six 
feet high, broad-chested, strong-limbed; his face Shake- 
sperian, with deep eyelids ; his forehead ample, crowned 
with dark wavy hair, his hands the admiration of sculp- 
tors — long fingers with square tips, soft as a child's, 
but of great size and strength." With all his bodily 
power, however, he combined gentleness of manner and 
a fastidious delicacy of nature which appears everjrwhere 
in his writings. 

Tennyson was shy and reserved by nature; he found 
it hard to meet new people ; and he preferred a few tried 
and true friends to many acquaintances. The limited 
circle of his student friends at Cambridge included sev- 
eral who afterwards became famous — Merivale, the his- 
torian of Rome; Archbishop Trench; Alford, Dean of 
Canterbury ; and, best friend of all, Arthur Hallam, son 
of the historian. 

There was a small group of Cambridge men, includ- 



INTEODUCTION xiii 

ing Tennyson's friends and Tennyson himself, who were 
called ''The Apostles." They devoted themselves to 
two enthusiasms: the cause of political liberty, and the 
cause of pure religion. These causes absorbed the de- 
votion of the best youth everywhere in Europe at that 
time. It was the spirit of the age. Every ardent boy 
of true ambition felt the call to serve his day by writing 
and working and fighting for better things in politics 
and religion. Tennyson had come to know the earlier 
impulse of this high enthusiasm in the poetry of his 
favorites, Coleridge and Keats. 

Naturally, the volume of "Poems, chiefly Lyrical," 
which Tennyson published in 1830, though not con- 
sciously imitative, showed the influence of Coleridge 
and Keats. Naturally, too, in the summer of 1830, 
Tennyson and his closest friend, Arthur Hallam, de- 
cided to travel in the Pyrenees, taking with them funds 
collected in England for the help of the revolutionists 
in Spain. The enterprise was romantic and adventur- 
ous and even dangerous. We are glad that Tennj^son 
succeeded in delivering the funds safely. The most 
important result for us of today, however, is that on 
this journey Tennyson produced some of the most beau- 
tiful lines of "Oenone," and years afterwards was led 
by recollection to write the reminiscent lines, "In the 
Valley of Cauteretz." 

Tennyson left Cambridge, without a degree, in Feb- 
ruary, 1831, owing to the ill-health of his father, who 
died a few weeks later. The family remained at Som- 
ersby six years longer, Tennyson employing himself in 
reading and study, and in revising his poems. In 1832 
Tennyson published a second volume (dated 1833) con- 
taining some of his most characteristic and most admired 
pieces, among them "The Lady of Shalott," "The 



XIV INTRODUCTION 

Lotos-Eaters," ''The Miller's Daughter," and ''The 
Palace of Art." His Cambridge friends already be- 
lieved him destined to greatness in poetry, and received 
the volume with acclaim; but the reviewers, and the 
public generally, remained untouched. Indeed, the crit- 
icisms were in the main so unfavorable, that Tennyson 
published no further volume until 1842. Here was a 
long wait. Think what it meant to him! 

In the interval, he studied regularly, added German 
and Italian to his languages, read widely in the classics, 
in history, and in poetry, and undertook several of the 
sciences. During these years of work and waiting, his 
interest in nature continued to grow, and he began to 
feel a deeper and wider interest, an interest in life and 
its problems, and in social questions; consequently his 
quest of beauty became more comprehensive and mean- 
ingful. Profound personal sorrow came to him with 
the death, in 1833, of his nearest friend, Arthur Hal- 
lam, who was engaged to Tennyson's sister, Emily. Out 
of this experience he wrote "In Memoriam," which was 
not finally completed and published until 1850. Tenny- 
son's discouragements and perplexities in these years 
were manifold. The greatest was the seeming hopeless- 
ness of his love for Emily Sellwood, the sister of Charles 
Tennyson's wife. Lack of sufficient income and of as- 
sured prospects of worldly success seemed to forbid all 
thoughts of marriage. He kept steadily at work, how- 
ever, increasing his mastery of the art to which his life 
was now devoted. 

Recognition as a poet of high order came finally in 
1842, when he published his "Poems," in two volumes, 
about one-half of the contents being new work, the re- 
mainder the revision of his earlier efforts. The ' ' Poems ' ' 
showed great variety of metrical structure, as well as 



INTRODUCTION xv 

of subjects. It was evident that his poetic power was 
maturing, though his greatest works were still to come. 
Among the new poems in the 1842 volumes were "Morte 
d 'Arthur," ^'Ulysses," "Godiva," "Break, Break, 
Break," and "Locksley Hall." 

We get a glimpse of the then young and rising poet 
in a letter written by Carlyle, a lifelong friend, to 
Emerson in 1844: 

''Tennyson is now in Town, and means to come and 
see me. Of this latter result I shall be very glad. Al- 
fred is one of the few British or Foreign Figures (a 
not increasing number I think!) who are and remain 
beautiful to me; — a true human soul, or some approx- 
imation thereto, to whom your ow^n soul can say, Broth- 
er ! — However, I doubt he will not come ; he often skips 
me, in these brief visits to Town; skips everybody in- 
deed, being a man solitary and sad, as certain men are, 
dw^elling in an element of gloom, — carrying a bit of 
Chaos about him, in short, which he is manufacturing 
into Cosmos ! — He had his breeding at Cambridge, as if 
for the Law or Church ; being master of a small annuity 
on his Father's decease, he preferred clubbing with his 
Mother and some Sisters, to live unpromoted and write 
poems. In this way he lives still, now here, now there ; 
the family always within reach of London, never in it; 
he himself making rare and brief visits, lodging in some 
old comrade's rooms. I think he must be under forty, 
not much under it. One of the finest looking men in 
the world. A great shock of rough dusty-dark hair; 
bright, laughing, hazel eyes; massive aquiline face, most 
massive yet most delicate; of sallow-brown complexion, 
almost Indian-looking; clothes cynically loose, free-and- 
easy; smokes infinite tobacco. His voice is musical me- 
tallic, — fit for loud laughter and piercing w^ail, and all 



xvi INTKODUCTION 

that may lie between; speech and speculation free and 
plenteous: I do not meet, in these late decades, such 
company over a pipe ! — We shall see what he will grow 
to.'^ 

In 1845 Tennyson was granted a pension of £200, 
which put him beyond the need of immediate financial 
worry. In 1847 came ''The Princess," a medley, con- 
taining some of his best lyrics, and also evincing his 
interest in one of the subjects that people were then 
thinking about, — the sphere of woman. Shakespeare has 
dealt with the same theme in "Love's Labour's Lost," 
and Henry James satirizes it in "The Bostonians." 

In 1848 Tennyson visited the King Arthur country, 
and spent a day with the strange and solitary Vicar of 
Morwenstow, the Reverend R. S. Hawker, who had for 
many years studied the antiquities and the legends of 
Cornwall, and whose parish included the ruins of Tin- 
tagel. Hawker was a poet of Arthurian legend too, and 
has left an interesting account of the day with Tenny- 
son : — 

"I found my guest, at his entrance, a tall, swarthy, 
Spanish-looking man, with an eye like a sword. He sate 
down and we conversed. I at once found myself with 
no common mind. All poetry in particular he seemed 
to use like household words. — We then talked about 
Cornwall and King Arthur, my themes, and I quoted 
Tennyson's fine account of the restoration of Excalibur 
to the Lake. — We talked of the sea, which he and I 
equally adore. But as he told me, strange to say, Words- 
worth cannot bear its face. — Then seated on the brow of 
the cliff, with Dundagel full in sight, he revealed to me 
the purpose of his journey to the West. — I lent him 
books and manuscripts about King Arthur, which he 
carried off, and which I perhaps shall never see again. 



INTRODUCTION xvii 

Then evening fell. He arose to go, and I agreed to 
drive him on his way. He demanded a pipe, and pro- 
duced a package of very common shag. By great good 
luck my sexton had about him his own short black 
dudheen, which accordingly the minstrel filled and fired. 
— We shook farewell at Coombe. — 'This,' said Tennyson, 
*has indeed been a day to be remembered.' — The bard 
is a handsome, well-formed man and tall, more like a 
Spaniard than an Englishman — black, long elflocks all 
round his face, 'mid which his eyes not only shine but 
glare ; his garments loose and full, such as bard beseems, 
and over all a large dark Spanish cloak. He speaks the 
languages both old and new, and has manifestly a most 
hihliothec memory. — His voice is very deep, tuneful, and 
slow — an organ, not a breath. His temper, which I 
tried, seemed very calm — his spirits very low. When 
I quoted 'My Way of Life' and again '0 never more 
on me,' he said they too were his haunting words." 

The year 1850 is memorable in Tennyson's life. In 
that year he published "In Memoriam," on Avhich he 
had been engaged for a long time. It is considered 
by many to be the most deeply satisfying of his longer 
poems, both in its thought and in its music. "In Me- 
moriam" confirmed the high estimate which had been 
put upon his poetical power, and fixed his place as 
one of the great English poets. In 1850, also, he mar- 
ried Emily Sellwood. "The peace of God," he said, 
"came into my life before the altar, when I wedded 
her." On their wedding journey, the poet and his wife 
visited the King Arthur country in Wales, including 
Glastonbury, where, according to one legend. King Ar- 
thur lies buried, in one of the island valleys of Avilion 
"set in apple blossoms." 

In 1850, also, Tennyson was appointed Poet Laureate, 



xviii INTRODUCTION 

following the death of Wordsworth. His life of privacy 
made him somewhat reluctant to accept the honor. ''I 
have no passion for courts," he said. On the advice 
of his friends, however, he yielded to the wishes of the 
Queen, who, with the Prince, had appreciated deeply 
"In Memoriam, " and he enjoyed the favor as well as 
the simple, genuine friendship of the Queen during the 
remainder of his life. 

From 1850 onward, the record of the poet's life is a 
record of unbroken achievement in his art. ' ' The Charge 
of the Light Brigade" was published in 1854; "Maud 
and other Poems" in 1855; four "Idylls of the King" 
in 1859; "Enoch Arden" in 1864; "The Holy Grail, 
and other Poems" in 1869; "The Last Tournament" in 
1871; and "Gareth and Lynette" in 1872. At the age 
of sixty-four Tennyson essayed the drama, publishing 
the play "Queen Mary" (1875), which with "Harold" 
(1877) and "Beckett" (1884) forms his "historical 
trilogy": "Harold" representing the conflict between 
Dane, Saxon, and Norman; "Becket," the conflict be- 
tween the throne and the Church; "Queen Mary," the 
conflict between the individual and established institu- 
tions. The plays together reproduce the three steps by 
which Tennyson thought England has come to its mod- 
ern condition, and they indicate the elements that must 
be reckoned with in solving modern social and political 
problems. "The Foresters," "The Cup," and "The 
Falcon" are other dramas of Tennyson's. 

For three years after their marriage the Tennysons 
lived at Twickenham. Then they established their per- 
manent home at Farringford, on the Isle of Wight. 
They made it a beautiful estate, and thither followed 
the friendships of a lifetime. The poet divided his 
time, after 1870, between Farringford and a summer 



INTRODUCTION xix 

home at Aldworth in Surrey; but a house in London, 
which he took for a time, he occupied very little. Far- 
ringford was his real home. He had a horror of being 
lionized and overrun by celebrity hunters; yet, even in 
retirement at Farringford, it was difficult to escape the 
curious. He once complained to the Queen that he could 
no longer endure the tourists who came to the Isle of 
Wight to stare at him. The Queen, so the story goes, 
remarked ironically that she did not suffer much from 
that grievance, but Tennyson replied, ''No, madam, and 
no more should I, if I could clap a sentinel wherever I 
liked." As a matter of fact, his family and servants 
were obliged to guard him very closely from unwelcome 
visitors. Yet he loved to have at Farringford those 
whom he knew w'ell, and the list of his friends included 
all contemporary Englishmen of distinction. Browning, 
Carlyle, Thackeray, Ruskin, Huxley, Henry Irving, 
Gladstone, Prince Albert, and many others. Distin- 
guished foreigners sought him out, — Garibaldi the Ital- 
ian patriot, Emerson, and Charles Sumner. Sumner 
bored him by a long discourse on American affairs; 
Tennyson interrupted at the first opportunity to inquire 
if his guest had read "The Princess." "It is one of 
my favorite poems, ' ' answered Sumner, whereupon Ten- 
nyson handed him the book and asked him to read. 
Sumner began; but very soon Tennyson took the book 
in order to show how a certain passage should be ren- 
dered, and then continued the reading himself, in his 
characteristic chant, until the American Senator became 
very, very weary. On and on went Tennyson, reading 
in high-pitched tone — on to the very end of the long 
poem; and the friends of Sumner remarked that the 
visit was never repeated. The two men were well- 
matched in egotism of a kind that often accompanies 



XX INTKODUCTION 

greatness. Tennyson undoubtedly had a very high opin- 
ion of his own poetry, but he was generous also in praise 
of the work of other poets. 

Honors as well as friendships crowded the last half 
of the poet's life. Oxford conferred on him the degree 
of D.C.L. He was invited to assume the Lord Rector- 
ship of Glasgow University, but declined. He was of- 
fered a baronetcy by the Queen, but wrote in reply, 
*'I had rather we should remain plain Mr. and Mrs., 
and that, if it were possible, the title should first be 
assumed by our son." According to English custom, 
this could not be. Finally, in his seventy-fifth year, 
after much persuading, he reluctantly accepted a peer- 
age, saying to his son, ''For my own part I shall regret 
my simple name all my life." His acceptance of the 
peerage gave great pleasure to the Queen and to the 
Prime Minister, Mr. Gladstone. It was understood by 
all as the expression of the desire of the throne to 
honor letters, in the person of the greatest representa- 
tive of letters then living. When he took his seat in 
the House of Lords, he declined to ally himself with 
either of the great parties. He voted in favor of the 
extension of the franchise, but the tone of his later 
poetry indicates a decided increase of the conservative 
tendency in his thinking. 

Tennyson died, October 6, 1892, full of honors and 
greatly beloved. In his eighty-first year he had written 
"Crossing the Bar"; and this touching and beautiful 
poem, which declares his faith and hope, fittingly stands 
by his own request at the end of the authorized edition 
of his poems. 



INTRODUCTION xxi 



II. THE GROWTH OP THE '' IDYLLS OF THE KING" 

The permanent order of the Idylls is as follows : — 

Dedication (1862) 

The Coming of Arthur (1869) 

The Round Table— 

Gareth and Lynette (1872) 
The Marriage of Geraint (1857) foriginaHy pub- 
^ • ^ 1 -I-. • 1 /-lo^rrN i lished as one 

Geramt and Enid (1857) (^ j^^yn 

Balin and Balan (1885) 

Merlin and Vivien (1857) 

Lancelot and Elaine (1859) 

The Holy Grail (1869) 

Pelleas and Etarre (1869) 

The Last Tournament (1871) 

Guinevere (1859) 
The Passing of Arthur* (1869) 
To the Queen (1873) 

The dates given in parentheses are significant. They 
show that, during the greater part of his life, the poet's 
imagination was drawn to the Arthurian legends, which 
he had read as a boy in Malory's book. There is a 
stretch of fifty years and more between the Morte d^ Ar- 
thur (1834) and the publication of the last of the Idylls 
(1885), and their permanent arrangement in the series 
of twelve books (1889), as we now have them. 

It is not likely that from the very first the poet had 
in mind a complete series that should constitute an epic 
of Arthur. But that design had come to him before 
the publication of Morte d^ Arthur in 1842; for, in the 

* Incorporating, almost without change, Morte d' Arthur, which 
was written in 1834. 



xxii INTKODUCTION 

introduction, the poet represents it as a fragment of a 
long epic, the rest of which he had thrown into the 
fire as being '^nothing worth." The 1842 volume also 
contained the poems Sir Galahad and Sir Lancelot and 
Queen Guinevere. The Lady of Slialott, a lyrical treat- 
ment of the same material that enters into the Idyll of 
Lancelot and Elaine (1859), had appeared in 1832, and 
was the first product of his interest in Arthurian story. 

III. SOURCES OF THE IDYLLS 

The chief source from which Tennyson drew the mate- 
rial for most of the Idylls was the Morte d' Arthur of 
Sir Thomas Malory, printed in 1485 by Caxton, the first 
English printer, — a book that should be familiar to every 
reader of Tennyson's ''Idylls of the King.". The mate- 
rial for the Idyll of Geraint and Enid he drew from 
Lady Charlotte Guest's Mahinogion (1838), a transla- 
tion into English of some of the old Welsh legends con- 
tained in the Bed Book of Hergerst. 

Little is known of Malory (whose name is also spelled 
Malory e and Maleor) except that he was a knight, and 
as a young man served in France with Richard Beau- 
champ, Earl of Warwick, who for his chivalric ideals 
was given the romantic title "Father of Courtesy." 
Malory's book is a compilation and condensation of a 
great mass of legends about King Arthur and the Round 
Table Knights, — legends which had been sung and re- 
cited for many generations in the courts of princes and 
the castles of nobles all over Europe. But Malory's 
book is more than a compilation and condensation. 
Malory was a poet in spirit, and changed many of the 
old legends, in order to satisfy his sense for good story- 
telling, and to make the legends harmonize with the 



INTEODUCTION xxiii 

ideals of his own day, that "noble men may see and 
learn the noble acts of chivalry, the gentle and virtu- 
ous deeds that some knights used in those days by which 
they came to honour, and how they that were vicious 
were punished and oft put to shame and rebuke." * 

Tennyson for the very same reasons changed, in im- 
portant particulars, the stories as he found them in 
Malory's book and elsewhere. 

According to the Preface which Caxton wrote for Sir 
Thomas Malory's book, Malory found the stories that 
make up his Morte d' Arthur in "certain books of 
French." Among these the chief was, no doubt, Geof- 
frey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Biittanice, first 
written in Latin in 1136, and made into a French ver- 
sion, about the year 1155, by Wace, a Jersey poet, un- 
der the title Roman de Brut. There was also a French 
Roman de Merlin, and there was La Queste del Saint 
Graal, that Malory used, especially in the first four 
books of his Morte d' Arthur. Tennyson, of course, also 
knew and used these and other books. 

IV. THE ARTHUR STORY 

Probably there was a real Arthur, a leader of the 
Christian Britons against the pagan Saxons and other 
invading tribes, in the late fifth and early sixth century 
after Christ. He was able to withstand them for a lon^ 
time, but in the end the Saxons conquered, and drove 
the Britons into Wales and Brittany, where legends 
about Arthur and his exploits grew up, and Arthur 
soon became a myth. He is first mentioned by Nennius, 
in the Historia Britonnum, (Latin, 850 a.d.), some 250 

* Caxton's Preface to Malory's Morte d^ Arthur. 



xxlv INTRODUCTION 

years after the time of his activity, and before the ideals 
of chivalry had become dominant. In Geoffrey of Mon- 
mouth 's Historia Begum Brittanice (1136), Arthur has 
grown in importance. He is represented as a parallel 
to Charlemagne, in the role of a world conqueror, who 
first subdues Rome, exacts tribute from Rome, and is 
crowned by the Pope. There is a set of legends for 
Charlemagne that match strangely the legends of Ar- 
thur. The longing seems to have been universal in 
Europe, at the time, for a head of a Christian empire 
who should rule the whole world in righteousness. When 
the age of chivalry had come, it was natural that the 
stories of Arthur should multiply and should take on 
Christian elements that had not been prominent in them 
before. Wace (1155), in his Roman de Brut, first added 
the conception of the Christian Round Table to the 
Arthur story. 

And because fellowship in the Round Table would add 
glory to the tale of any knight, legends of Tristram and 
of other knights, independent before, were now united 
with the Arthur legends. About 1196 Walter Map (or 
Mapes), an archdeacon of Oxford, spiritualized Arthur- 
ian story by connecting Arthur with the legend of the 
Holy Grail. He attributed to King Arthur the same 
high function as we attribute to our Savior, — the func- 
tion of a spiritual emperor. Layamon, about 1205, wrote 
the new and enlarged Arthur story, as told by Wace, 
into the English of his day under the title Brut. The 
Lancelot story, at first independent of Arthurian legend, 
was told by Chrestien de Troyes, and the story of Par- 
sifal and the Holy Grail by Wolfram von Eschenbach. 
These stories, in England, France, and Germany, embod- 
ied the common ideas of Christian chivalry. From many 
of these legends and stories, Malory drew a picture of 



INTRODUCTION xxv 

King Arthur that satisfied the longing of Malory's age 
for the beautiful and the just in government and soci- 
ety; and Tennyson in his turn found the ideal Arthur 
adaptable to nineteenth century conceptions of beauty 
and justice and righteousness. 

V. THE MEANING OF THE IDYLLS 

In his Epilogue To the Queen, Tennyson hints at the 
meaning that runs through- the series of "Idylls of the 
King. ' ' The work is, he says, 

*'an old imperfect tale, 
New-old, and shadowing sense at war with soul." 

By ''new-old" he means that he will re-tell these old 
stories as a nineteenth-century poet, and with the best 
ideals of his own age in full view ; that, while retaining 
the mediaeval imagery, he will adapt the legends to the 
feelings and sentiments of his own generation. He will 
make them significant and meaningful to people of his 
own time. The war of sense against soul is eternal; 
but it has many special phases, and each generation has 
to engage in the old conflict under new conditions. 
Some call the conflict of Sense against Soul the war of 
body against spirit ; others, the war of the actual against 
the ideal; others, the war of the possible against the 
desirable; others, the war of the imperfect against the 
perfect ; others, the war of inclination against conscience ; 
others still, the war of evil against good. In whatever 
way it may be phrased, it is a war of what we know 
to be lower against what we know to be higher. The 
conflict is in each individual life as it was in Lancelot's; 
it is likewise in each generation, in the history of each 
nation, and in the epochs of human advancement. In 



xxvi INTEODUCTION 

each of these latter, the conflict appears in the struggle 
for better laws and customs, for purer institutions in 
church, state, school, family. As Mrs. Ritchie, daughter 
of Thackeray and friend of Tennyson, says, ''the Idylls 
mean the history, not of one man, or of one gener- 
ation, but of a whole cycle, of the faith of a nation 
failing and falling away into darkness. It is the 
dream of man coming into practical life and ruined by 
one sin." 

But Tennyson speal^ of his story as merely ^^ shadow- 
ing^' the war of sense against soul. He does not wish 
us to be ready with a moral judgment at every turn of 
the page. We are to read each Idyll for the beauty 
of the story, for the imagery in which the story is told, 
and for the music of the verse. And keeping our minds 
open to all suggestions of spiritual truth and beauty 
that come unbidden and unsought, we are not to hold 
to our interpretation as the only one intended by the 
poet. From the very same lines different readers will 
take different hints, hints of the beautiful and courage- 
ous in conduct, or of the superior and chivalric in man- 
ners, or of the loyal and true in statesmanship, or of 
the admirable in imperfect human nature under trying 
conditions. Each may find something to fulfill his own 
theory of what is best in life. Tennyson insists only 
that each reader believe in the permanence of the beau- 
tiful and the true in human nature, and in the ever- 
lasting value of ideal integrity as Arthur embodied it, 
which in defeat is still victorious. ''When asked once 
whether the three queens who accompanied Arthur on 
his last voyage were Faith, Hope, and Charity, he an- 
swered, "They mean that, and they do not. They are 
three of the noblest of women. They are also the three 
Graces, but they are much more. I hate to be tied down 



INTRODUCTION xxvii 

to say, ' this means that, ' because the thought within the 
image is much more than any one interpretation." 

In the first Idyll, The Coming of Arthur, is pictured 
the beginning of a spiritual epoch, and the attitude 
of the world toward the bringer of a new ideal that is 
hard for humanity to realize in life and conduct. Al- 
though Arthur is finally crowned, it is only after fierce 
war with the banded rulers of various realms of igno- 
rance and sin. Even among his own people there are 
serious doubts of the authenticity of his high commis- 
sion. But he is accepted, crowned, and acclaimed king, 
forms the fellowship of militant Christian knights whom 
he binds to the service of the ideal by strong vows, and 
having made the beautiful but less spiritually minded, 
yet more human, Guinevere his Queen, opens his reign 
with the glory of high achievement about him, and with 
the promise of realizing heaven upon the earth. 

In the last Idyll, The Passing of Arthur, is pictured 
in gloom the close of the epoch. The ideal has not been 
established in the world. The knights have fallen away 
for the most part, and the forces of righteousness are 
engaged in a great struggle with the forces of evil. In 
the course of this wild conflict, hidden by thick mists, 
the two hosts destroy each other; Arthur is desperately 
wounded, but slays the chief traitor, Modred; and no 
loyal knight remains except Bedivere. To the eye cf 
sense, through which Bedivere looks, the ideal seems to 
have failed utterly in this world. To the eye of soul 
through which the wounded Arthur looks with faith, 
the divine plan is clearer: a new order of things will 
take the place of the old, Avhich has served its time; 
and, in the new order, the same Ideal for which Arthur 
fought will return to men's hearts, to renew at better 
advantage the conflict with evil. It is given to no one 



xxviii INTRODUCTION 

epoch to realize in completeness the reign of righteous- 
ness, though it is the duty of each to strive toward it. 
Frail humanity is gifted with the power to see the 
ideal, but is not adapted to reach it completely in any 
one epoch. The complete victory is ever postponed from 
age to age. The glory is in the heroic nature of the 
conflict for the right at all times. 

The first Idyll and the last, then, are complementary. 
The intervening Idylls show various phases of the con- 
flict. They answer the question, ''How did it happen 
that the battle for the right in Arthur's epoch appar- 
ently failed?" They show a promising kingdom grad- 
ually brought to ruin, and the best efforts of an almost 
divine King slowly but surely foiled, by the insidious 
working of one sin, — the sin of Guinevere and Lancelot. 

In the second Idyll, Gareth and Lynette, however, 
the court is still pure, and all is youth and faith and 
high resolve and noble achievement. Arthur's knights 
keep their vows loyally. Gareth, on the small scale of 
individual achievement, carries out the great purposes 
of the King both in redressing wrongs, and in revealing 
to his fellows, and to the class-conscious Lynette, a truer 
ideal of life. A few more Gareths, and the golden age 
would have been realized. 

In the Marriage of Geraint, and in Geraint and Enid, 
appears the first effect of the Queen's sin upon the 
court. A whisper of the Queen's unfaithfulness breeds 
in Geraint unjust suspicion of his own wife, ' ' Enid the 
Fair," ''Enid the Good," bringing unhappiness and 
unnecessary suffering to both, and causing Geraint to 
neglect his knightly duties to his princedom and to the 
king. In Balin and Balan, the death of the two brothers 
is the result of their loss of faith in the purity of the 
Queen. Indications of coming degeneracy in the realm 



INTRODUCTION xxix 

accompany the spread of the evil rumors. In Merlin 
and Vivien, the story tells how Mage Merlin, who typi- 
fies science or intellect, and who up to this time has used 
his splen^d powers in the service of the Ideal as em- 
bodied in Arthur, is led away from that service to evil, 
and to helpless inanity, by the wily Vivien, whose sin 
is Guinevere's, in a lower and wickeder form. 

The Idylls that follow continue to bring out the same 
meaning with greater vividness. In Lancelot and Elaine, 
the innocent Elaine suffers the wreck of her hopes and 
death itself because of a guilt in others, of which she 
knows naught. Lancelot himself suffers terrible remorse 
for this unintended result of his great and guilty pas- 
sion for the Queen, a passion that '^had marred his 
face and marked it ere his time." Though he might 
have loved Elaine, loyalty to his false tie rendered him 
powerless to save her. 

A strange but inevitable effect upon religion is seen 
in the next Idyll, The Holy Grail. As faith is under- 
mined by the spread of impurity through society, re- 
ligion becomes superstition. It no longer means service 
to the world to the end of practical good; it comes to 
mean the search for new and vague sensations, for vis- 
ions and for far-off glimpses of the strange and the 
miraculous. Arthur, with the true vision, stays at home 
and does his kingly duty ; the knights ' ' follow wander- 
ing fires," and forget their practical duties. 

In Pelleas and Etarre, the prevalent evil has become 
open crime. The trusting and loyal Pelleas is embit- 
tered by the faithlessness of Etarre and the deceit of 
Gawain. Pelleas is maddened when told by the pure 
Percivale that the sin through which he suffers is wide- 
spread in the realm, and is the result of the great ex- 
ample set at court by Lancelot and Guinevere. The 



XXX INTKODUCTION 

latter see that the day of doom for them is approach- 
ing. In The Last Tournament, ''The Tournament of 
the Dead Innocence," there is open ridicule and scorn 
for the vows of Arthur; the glory of the Round Table 
has departed; society is given over to evil, Sense tri- 
umphs over Soul. Only one is left to declare the faith 
in the Ideal, and that one is Dagonet, the court fool. 
The Idyll closes with a murder. In Guinevere, the 
storm has broken; the sin of the court is published to 
the world ; the court itself is broken up ; the Round 
Tabl-e fellowship is no more, there is civil war, and the 
realm is on the verge of destruction. The destruction 
is completed in the final tragedy of the last great battle 
of the West, about which we are told in The Passing 
of Arthur. So the epoch closes in gloom, and with the 
temporary defeat of the King's divine purposes; but 
Arthur does not die. The Ideal which he embodied 
cannot perish. He passes to a land of healing for a 
time, and will return to make a more glorious realm 
in the earth. 

VI. THE IDYLLS AS A ''POEM OP THE YEAR AND THE SOUL'* 

The Idylls are twelve in number. Because they are 
represented as running through a complete year, and 
because their background in natural scenery is nicely 
adjusted by the poet to the successive moods of the soul 
depicted in the series, they have been called "a poem 
of the year and the soul." Thus in The Coming of 
Arthur we learn that Arthur was born on the night of 
the new year; and his marriage takes place ''among the 
flowers in May" — 

' ' Far shone the fields of May thro ' open door ; 
The sacred altar blossom 'd white with May." 



i INTRODUCTION xxxi 

In Gareth mid Lynette, Gareth leaves home on a Spring 
morning when 

"The birds made 
Melody on branch, and melody in mid air. 
The damp hill-slopes were quicken 'd into green, 
And the live green had kindled into flowers, 
For it was past the time of Easterday. " 

In the next seven Idylls the season is summer-, we pass 
from the mowing season in Geraini to the blossom-dust 
and thunder-storm of Merlin and Vivien, and the "full- 
summer" of Lancelot and Elaine. There are late sum- 
mer storms in The Holy Grail, and the vision of the 
Grail appears on a summer night. In Pelleas and 
Etarre it is the end of summer and early autumn, with 
the sun beating "like a strong man," and with autumn 
roses and a mellow moon. The Last Tournament men- 
tions yellowing woods, withered leaf, and ' ' autumn-drip- 
ping gloom"; and Guinevere, the creeping mists of early 
winter. In The Passing of Arthur we have reached the 
depth of winter, with rolling mists, frozen hills, and 
ice-incrusted rocks. At the very end "the new sun rose 
bringing the new year.'^ 

VII. THE VERSE OF THE IDYLLS 

The form in which the Idylls are written is blank 
verse : that is, each line consists of five iambic feet, and 
the lines do not rhyme. An iambic foot is composed of 
two syllables, the stress or accent falling upon the sec- 
ond. There is usually a slight pause somewhere in the 
line, called the ca?sural pause. Thus the first line of 
The Coining of Arthur, divided into feet, accented, and 
with the caesural pause indicated by a double line, is 
as follows: 



xxxii INTRODUCTION 

/ / r It 

Leod|ogran II the King | of Cam | el iard (yard) 

This is the normal line for iambic pentameter. But the 
beauty of blank verse, as written by great poets like 
Tennyson, consists in the numerous and varied slight 
deviations from the normal and the regular, which the 
poet makes within the line. The small liberties overcome 
the monotony which a series of lines precisely alike 
would produce. They retard or quicken the movement, 
according to the action or the thought. They subtly 
conform idiomatic phraseology to the music within the 
line, and sentence-structure to the harmony which ap- 
pears on a larger scale in a series of lines. 

Tennyson himself once said, ''The English public 
thinks that blank verse is the easiest thing in the world 
to write, mere prose cut up into five-foot lines : whereas 
it is one of the most difficult. In a blank verse line you 
can have from tln*ee up to eight beats; — ^the varying of 
the beats, of the construction of the feet, of the empha- 
sis, of the extra-metrical syllables, and of the pauses, 
helps to make the greatness of blank verse." 

The following passage from The Coming of Arthur 
shows how the position of the caesural pause is changed 
from line to line : 

Leodogran || the King of Cameliard, 
Had one fair daughter 1 1 and none other child ; 
And she was fairest of all flesh on earth, 
Guinevere || and in her his one delight. 
For many a petty king || ere Arthur came 
Ruled in this isle || and ever waging war 
Each upon other || wasted all the land. 

In the first and the fourth lines, the caesura is at the 
close of the second foot; the early pause here having 



INTRODUCTION xxxiii 

the effect of throwing emphasis on the proper name, 
and of giving importance to the character. In the sec- 
ond line, the cgesura is in the middle of the third foot. 
In the third line there is no pronounced pause at all. 
In the fifth line, the caesura is at the close of the third 
foot; in the sixth line, at the close of the second foot; 
and in the seventh line, at the middle of the third foot. 
In the following, it is in the middle of the very first 
foot in one line, and in the middle of the fourth foot 
in the other: 

Stay II till the cloud that settles round his birth 
Hath lifted but a little. || Stay, sweet son. 

In the following it is in the middle of the last foot — 
How can ye keep me tether 'd to you — Shame. 

In the following, instead of the caesural pause there are 
two secondary pauses, at the commas — 

Lot's wife, the Queen of Orkney, Bellicent. 

Variety is also secured by using both end-stopt and run- 
on lines. When there is a pause at the end of a line, 
it is said to be end-stopt. When there is none, the line 
is said to ''run on," or is called a run-on line. In the 
following, all the lines excepting the first and the last 
but one, are run-on lines: 

''But Arthur, looking downward as he pass'd. 
Felt the light of her eyes into his life 
Smite on the sudden, yet rode on, and pitch 'd 
His tents beside the forest. Then he drave 
The heathen; after, slew the beast, and fell'd 
The forest, letting in the sun, and made 
Broad pathways for the hunter and the knight, 
And so return 'd." 



xxxiv IXTRODFCTIOX 

In the normal foot, the accents fall upon the even 
syllables, but often the odd syllable of a foot will re- 
ceive the accent instead, as in the first line below; some- 
times both syllables will demand an accent : sometimes 
both refuse it, as in the second line below : 

/ / tit 

Guine |vere andjin herjhis one delight. 

/ / It I 

And she \ was fair ' est of j all flesh \ on earth. ' 

Occasionally a foot has three syllables, but the time 
required to read such a foot does not vary perceptibly 
from that required by the normal foot. Thus the last 
foot in each of the following lines : 

I lilt / 

Travail I and throes I and ag i onies j of the life 

I f t I 

To speak ^ no slan | der, no ! nor list | en to it, 

The following lines have s\z accents instead of the usual 
five: 

A star 'shot : ''Lo,"|said Gar |eth, ''thejfoe falls." 

Broke the strong lance I and roU'djhis ene | my down. 

The following line has but four accents and the move- 
ment is thus hastened as the sense requires: 

/ / / I 

Fled like I a glititering rivjulet to | the tarn. 

All of the variations pointed out above have the effect 
of making the music conform more nearly to the image, 
and to the thought within the image; but seldom does 
any one of the variations work alone to produce an 
effect. Many other traits assist these variations to make 
the beauty of Tennyson's verse. For instance, in the 



INTRODUCTION xxxv 

line last quoted the combinations of short vowels with 
the liquids (1 and r) effect with the numerous unac- 
cented syllables a hastening of the motion: and in the 
following, which is perfectly imitative of galloping, we 
note that long vowels, which would delay, are entirely 

absent : 

/ t f t f 

The sound I of many | a heavily galloping hoof. 



IDYLLS OF THE KING 



THE COMING OF ARTHUR 

Leodogran, the King of Cameliard, 
Had one fair daughter, and none other child; 
And she was fairest of all flesh on earth, 
Guinevere, and in her his one delight. 

For many a petty king ere Arthur came 
Ruled in this isle, and ever waging war 
Each upon other, wasted all the land; 
And still from time to time the heathen host 
Swarm 'd overseas, and harried what was left. 
And so there grew great tracts of wilderness, lo 

Wherein the beast was ever more and more, 
But man was less and less, till Arthur came. 
For first Aurelius lived and fought and died, 
And after him King Uther fought and died. 
But either fail'd to make the kingdom one. 
And after these King Arthur for a space, 
And thro' the puissance of his Table Round, 
Drew all their petty princedoms under him. 
Their king and head, and made a realm, and reign M. 

And thus the land of Cameliard was waste, 20 

Thick with wet woods, and many a beast therein. 
And none or few to scare or chase the beast ; 
So that wild dog, and wolf and boar and bear 
Came night and day, and rooted in the fields, 

1 



2 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

And wallow 'd in the gardens of the King. 
And ever and anon the wolf would steal 
The children and devour, but now and then, 
Her own brood lost or dead, lent her fierce teat 
To human sucklings ; and the children, housed 

30 In her foul den, there at their meat would growl, 

And mock their foster-mother on four feet. 
Till, straighten 'd, they grew up to wolflike men, 
Worse than the wolves. And King Leodogran 
Groan 'd for the Roman legions here again, 
And Caesar's eagle: then his brother king, 
Urien, assail'd him: last a heathen horde. 
Reddening the sun with smoke and earth with blood, 
And on the spike that split the mother 's heart 
Spitting the child, brake on him, till, amazed, 

40 He knew not whither he should turn for aid. 

But — for he heard of Arthur newly crown 'd, 
Tho' not without an uproar made by those 
Who cried, ^He is not Uther's son' — the King 
Sent to him, saying, ' Arise, and help us thou ! 
For here between the man and beast we die.' 

And Arthur yet had done no deed of arms. 

But heard the call, and came : and Guinevere 

Stood by the castle walls to watch him pass ; 

But since he neither wore on helm or shield 

50 The golden symbol of his kinglihood. 

But rode a simple knight among his knights. 
And many of these in richer arms than he. 
She saw him not, or mark'd not, if she saw. 
One among many, tho' his face was bare. 



35. Caesar's eagle: the Roman military standard bearing 
the image of an eagle. 



THE COMING OF AKTHUR 3 

But Arthur, looking downward as he past, 

Felt the light of her eyes into his life 

Smite on the sudden, yet rode on, and pitch 'd 

His tents beside the forest. Then he drave 

The heathen; after, slew the beast, and fell'd 

The forest, letting in the sun, and made 60 

Broad pathways for the hunter and the knight 

And so return 'd. ^ 

For while he linger 'd there, 
A doubt that ever smouldered in the hearts 
Of those great Lords and Barons of his realm 
Flash 'd forth and into war : for most of these 
Colleaguing with a score of petty kings, 
Made head against him, crying, 'Who is he 
That he should rule us % who hath proven him 
King Uther's son? for lo! we look at him, 
And find nor face nor bearing, limbs nor voice, 70 
Are like to those of Uther whom we knew. 
This is the son of Gorlo'is, not the King ; 
This is the son of Anton, not the King.' 

And Arthur, passing thence to battle, felt 
Travail, and throes and agonies of the life, 
Desiring to be join'd with Guinevere; 
And thinking as he rode, 'Her father said 
That there between the man and beast they die. 
Shall I not lift her from this land of beasts 
Up to my throne, and side by side with me? 80 

What happiness to reign a lonely king, 
Vext — ye stars that shudder over me, 
O earth that soundest hollow under me, 



58. drave the heathen: Arthur's first war with the Saxon 
invaders of Britain. 



4 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

Vext with waste dreams? for saving I be join'd 
To her that is the fairest under heaven, 
I seem as nothing in the mighty world, 
And cannot will my will, nor work my work 
Wholly, nor make myself in mine own realm 
Victor and lord. But were I join'd with her, 
90 Then might we live together as one life, 

And reigning with one will in everything 
Have power on this dark land to lighten it. 
And power on this dead world to make it live. ' 

Thereafter — as he speaks who tells the tale — 
When Arthur reach 'd a field-of -battle bright 
With pitch 'd pavilions of his foe, the world 
Was all so clear about him, that he saw 
The smallest rock far on the faintest hill, 
And even in high day the morning star. 

100 So when the King had set his banner broad. 

At once from either side, with trumpet-blast. 
And shouts, and clarions shrilling unto blood. 
The long-lanced battle let their horses run. 
And now the Barons and the kings prevail'd. 
And now the King, as here and there that war 
Went swaying ; but the Powers who walk the world 
Made ligihtnings and great thunders over him, 
And dazed all eyes, till Arthur by main might, 
And mightier of his hands with every blow, 

110 And leading all his knighthood threw the kings 

Carados, Urien, Cradlemont of Wales, 
Claudius, and Clariance of Northumberland, 
The King Brandagoras of Latangor, 
With Anguisant of Erin, Morganore, 



103. battle: in the old chivalric sense of "cavalry." 



THE COMING OF ARTHUR 5 

And Lot of Orkney. Then, before a voice 
As dreadful as the shout of one who sees 
To one who sins, and deems himself alone 
And all the world asleep, they swerved and brake 
Flying, and Arthur call'd to stay the brands 
That hack'd among the flyers, 'Ho! they yield!' 120 
So like a painted battle the war stood 
Silenced, the living quiet as the dead. 
And in the heart of Arthur joy was lord. 
He laugh 'd upon his warrior whom he loved 
And honour 'd most. ' Thou dost not doubt me King, 
So well thine arm hath wrought for me to-day.* 
*Sir and my liege,' he cried, 'the fire of God 
Descends upon thee in the battle-field : 
I know thee for my King ! ' Whereat the two, 
For each had warded either in the fight, 130 

Sware on the field of death a deathless love. 
And Arthur said, ' Man 's word is God in man : 
^ — JUet chance what will, I triLst thee to the death, ' y^ 

Then quickly from the f oughten field he sent 
Ulfius, and Brastias, and Bedivere, 
His new-made knights, to King Leodogran, 
Saying, 'If I in aught have served thee well, 
Give me thy daughter Guinevere to wife.' 

Whom when he heard, Leodogran in heart 
Debating — 'How should I that am a king, 140 

However much he holp me at my need. 



115. Lot of Orkney. The Orkney islands are north of Scot- 
land. 

124. his warrior, etc.: Lancelot; Cf. 447. 

129. " I know thee for my King." Lancelot's allegiance 
springs from inner intuitive conviction. 



6 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

Give my one daughter saving to a king, 

And a king's son?' — lifted his voice, and called 

A hoary man, his chamberlain, to whom 

He trusted all things, and of him required 

His counsel : ' Knowest thou aught of Arthur 's birth ? ' 

Then spake the hoary chamberlain and said, 
*Sir King, there be but two old men that know: 
And each is twice as old as I ; and one 
150 Is Merlin, the wise man that ever served 

King Uther thro' his magic art; and one 
Is Merlin's master (so they call him) Bleys, 
Who taught him magic ; but the scholar ran 
Before the master, and so far, that Bleys 
Laid magic by, and sat him down, and wrote 
All things and whatsoever Merlin did 
In one great annal-book, where after-years 
Will learn the secret of our Arthur's birth.' 

To whom the King Leodogran replied, 
160 *0 friend, had I been holpen half as well 

By this King Arthur as by thee to-day. 
Then beast and man had had their share of me ; 
But summon here before us yet once more 
Ulfius, and Brastias, and Bedivere.' 

Then, when they came before him, the King said, 
'I have seen the cuckoo chased by lesser fowl, 
And reason in the chase : but wherefore now 
Do these your lords stir up the heat of war. 
Some calling Arthur born of Gorloi's, 
170 , Others of Anton? Tell me, ye yourselves, 
Hold ye this Arthur for King Uther 's son ? ' 



160-162. The meaning is that the Chamberlain's information 
is without value. 



THE COMING OF ARTHUR 7 

And Ulfius and Bfastias answer 'd, ^Ay/ 
Then Bedivere, the first of all his knights 
Knighted by Arthur at his crowning, spake — 
For bold in heart and act and word was he, T 

Whenever slander breathed against the King — 

' Sir, there be many rumours on this head : 
For there be those who hate him in their hearts, 
Call him baseborn, and since his ways are sweet, 
And theirs are bestial, hold him less than man : iso 

And there be those who deem him more than man : 
And dream he dropt from heaven : but my belief 
In all this matter — so ye care to learn — 
Sir, for ye know that in King Uther's time 
The prince and warrior Gorlois, he that held 
Tintagil castle by the Cornish sea, 
Was wedded with a winsome wife, Ygerne: 
And daughters had she borne him, — one whereof, 
Lot's wife, the Queen of Orkney, Bellicent, 
Hath ever like a loyal sister cleaved 190 

To Arthur, — but a son she had not borne. 
And Uther cast upon her eyes of love: 
But she, a stainless wife to Gorlois, 
So loathed the bright dishonour of his love. 
That Gorlois and King Uther went to war : 
And overthrown was Gorlois and slain. 
Then Uther in his wrath and heat besieged 
Ygerne within Tintagil, where her men. 
Seeing the mighty swarm about their walls. 
Left her and fled, and Uther enter 'd in, 200 

And there was none to call to but himself. 
So, compass 'd by the power of the King, 
Enforced she was to wed him in her tears. 
And with a shameful swiftness: afterward, 
Not many moons. King Uther died himself, 



S IDYLLS OF THE KING 

Moauiiig and wailing: for an heir to rule 
After him, lest the realm should go to wrack. 
And that same night, the night of the new year, 
By reason of the bitterness and grief 

210 That vext his mother, and all before his time 

AYas Arthur born, and all as soon as born 
Deliver 'd at a secret postern-gate 
To Merlin, to be holden far apart 
Until his hour should come; because the lords 
Of that fierce day were as the lords of this, 
AYild beasts, and surely would have torn the child 
Piecemeal among them, had they known : for each 
But sought to rule for his own self and hand. 
And many hated Uther for the sake 

220 Of Gorlois. Wherefore ^lerlin took the child, 

And gave him to Sir Anton, an old knight 
And ancient friend of Uther; and his wife 
Nursed the young prince, and rear'd him with her 

own ; 
And no man knew. And ever since the lords 
Have fought en like wild beasts among themselves. 
So that the realm has gone to wrack ; but now, 
This year, when Merlin (for his hour had come) 
Brought Arthur forth, and set him in the hall. 
Proclaiming, ' ' Here is Uther 's heir, your king, ' ' 

230 A hundred voices cried, *'Away with him! 

No king of ours ! a son of Gorlois he, 
Or else the child of Anton, and no king. 
Or else t)aseborn." Yet Merlin thro' his craft, 
And while the people clamour 'd for a king, 
Had Arthur crown 'd ; but after, the great lords 
Banded, and so brake out in open war. ' 

Then while the King debated with himself 
If Arthur were the child of shamefulness 



THE COMING OF ARTHUR -9 

Or bom the son of Gorlois, after death, 
Or Uther's son, and born before his time, 240 

Or whether there were truth in anything 
Said by these three, there came to Cameliard, 
With Gawain and younc^ ]\Iodred, her two sons, 
Lot's wife, the Queen of Orkney, Bellieent; 
Whom as he could, not as he would, the King 
Made feast for, saying, as they sat at meat, 

*A doubtful throne is ice on summer seas. 
Ye come from Arthur's court. Victor his men 
Report him ! Yea, but ye — think ye this king — 
So many those that hate him, and so strong, 250 

So few his knights, however brave they be — 
Hath body enow to hold his foemen down?' 

*0 King,' she cried, 'and I will tell thee: few, 
Few, but all brave, all of one mind with him ; 
For I was near him when the savage yells 
Of Uther's peerage died, and Arthur sat 
Crowned on the dais, and his warriors cried, 
*'Be thou the king, and we will work thy will 
Who love thee." Then the King in low deep tones, 
And simple words of great authority, 260 

Bound them by so strait vows to his own self. 
That when they rose, knighted from kneeling, some 
Were pale as at the passing of a ghost. 
Some flush 'd, and others dazed, as one who wakes 
Half-blinded at the coming of a light. 

'But when he spake and cheer 'd his Table Round 
With large, divine, and comfortable words. 
Beyond my tongue to tell thee — I beheld 



255. Savage yells. Cf. 230-236. 
267. comfortable: able to comfort. 



10 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

From eye to eye thro' all their Order flash 
270 A momentary likeness of the King: 

And ere it left their faces, thro' the cross 
And those around it and the Crucified, 
Down from the casement over Arthur, smote 
Flame-colour, vert and azure, in three rays. 
One falling upon each of three fair queens. 
Who stood in silence near his throne, the friends 
Of Arthur, gazing on him, tall, with bright 
Sweet faces, who will help him at his need. 

'And there I saw mage Merlin, whose vast wit 
280 And hundred winters are but as the hands 

Of loyal vassals toiling for their liege. 

'And near him stood the Lady of the Lake, 
Who knows a subtler magic than his own — 
Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful. 
She gave the King his huge cross-hilted sword, 
Whereby to drive the heathen out : a mist 
Of incense curl'd about her, and her face 
Wellnigh was hidden in the minster gloom; 
But there was heard among the holy hymns 
290 A voice as of the waters, for she dwells 

Down in a deep; calm, whatsoever storms 
May shake the world, and when the surface rolls. 
Hath power to walk the waters like our Lord. 

'There likewise I beheld Excalibur 
Before him at his crowning borne, the sword 
That rose from out the bosom of the lake. 
And Arthur row'd across and took it — rich 
With jewels, elfin Urim, on the hilt, 



298. elfin Urim: precious stones with mysterious power of 
enchantment. 



THE COMING OF ARTHUR H 

Bewildering heart and eye — the blade so bright 
That men are blinded by it — on one side, 300 

Graven in the oldest tongue of all this world, 
"Take me," but turn the blade and ye shall see, 
And written in the speech ye speak yourself, 
''Cast me away!" And sad was Arthur's face 
Taking it, but old Merlin counsell'd him, 
* ' Take thou and strike ! the time to cast away 
Is yet far-off." So this great brand the king 
Took, and by this will beat his foemen down/ 

Thereat Leodogran rejoiced, but thought 
To sift his doubtings to the last, and ask'd, 310 

Fixing full eyes of question on her face, 
' The swallow and the swift are near akin, 
But thou art closer to this noble prince. 
Being his own dear sister;' and she said, 
'Daughter of Gorloi's and Ygerne am I;' 
'And therefore Arthur's sister?' ask'd the King. 
She answer 'd, 'These be secret things,' and sign'd 
To those two sons to pass, and let them be. 
And Gawain went, and breaking into song 
Sprang out, and follow 'd by his flying hair 320 

Ran like a colt, and leapt at all he saw : 
But Modred laid his ear beside the doors. 
And there half -heard; the same that afterward 
Struck for the throne, and striking found his doom. 

And then the Queen made answer, ' What know I ? 
For dark my mother was in eyes and hair, 
And dark in hair and eyes am I ; and dark 
Was Gorloi's, yea and dark was Uther too, 
Wellnigh to blackness; but this King is fair 
Beyond the race of Britons and of men. 330 

Moreover, always in my mind I hear 



12 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

A cry from out the dawning of my life, 

A mother weeping, and I hear her say, 

^'0 that ye had some brother, pretty one. 

To guard thee on the rough ways of the workl. ' ' ' 

' Ay, ' said the King, ' and hear ye such a cry 1 
But when did Arthur chance upon thee first?' 

' O King ! ' she cried, ' and I will tell thee true : 
He found me first when yet a little maid: 

340 Beaten had I been for a little fault 

Whereof I was not guilty; and out I ran 

And flung myself down on a bank of heath. 

And hated this fair world and all therein, 

And wept, and wish 'd that I were dead ; and he — 

I know not whether of himself he came, 

Or brought by Merlin, who, they say, can walk 

Unseen at pleasure — ^lie w^as at my side, 

And spake sweet words, and comforted my heart, 

And dried my tears, being a child with me. 

350 And many a time he came, and evermore 

As I grew greater grew with me ; and sad 
At times he seem'd, and sad with him was I, 
Stern too at times, and then I loved him not, 
But sweet again, and then I loved him well. 
And now of late I see him less and less. 
But those first days had golden hours for me, 
For then I surely thought he would be king. 

* But let me tell thee now another tale : 
For Bleys, our Merlin's master, as they say, 
360 Died but of late, and sent his cry to me. 

To hear him speak before he left his life. 
Shrunk like a fairy changeling lay the mage; 
And when I enter 'd told me that himself 



THE COMING OF AKTHUR 13 

And Merlin ever served about the King, 

Uther, before he died ; and on the night 

When Uther in Tintagil past away 

Moaning and wailing for an heir, the two 

Left the still King, and passing forth to breathe, 

Then from the castle gateway by the chasm 

Descending thro' the dismal night — a night 370 

In which the bounds of heaven and earth were lost — 

Beheld, so high upon the dreary deeps 

It seem 'd in heaven, a ship, the shape thereof 

A dragon wing'd, and all from stem to stern 

Bright with a shining people on the decks, 

And gone as soon as seen. And then the two 

Dropt to the cove, and watch 'd the great sea fall, 

Wave after wave, each mightier than the last, 

Till last, a ninth one, gathering half the deep 

And full of voices, slowly rose and plunged 380 

Roaring, and all the w^ave was in a flame : 

And down the wave and in the flame was borne 

A naked babe, and rode to Merlin's feet, 

Who stoopt and caught the babe, and cried ''The 

King! 
Here is an heir for Uther!'* And the fringe 
Of that great breaker, sweeping up the strand, 
Lash'd at the wizard as he spake the word. 
And all at once all round him rose in fire, 
So that the child and he were clothed in fire. 
And presently thereafter follow 'd calm, 390 

Free sky and stars: "And this same child," he said, 
* ' Is he who reigns ; nor could I part in peace 
Till this were told." And saying this the seer 
Went thro' the strait and dreadful pass of death, 
Nor ever to be question 'd any more 



394. dreadful: full of things awaking dread. 



14 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

Save on the further side; but when I met 
Merlin, and ask'd him if these things were truth — 
The shining dragon and the naked child 
Descending in the glory of the seas — 
400 He laugh 'd as is his wont, and answer 'd me 

In riddling triplets of old time, and said: 

' ''Eain, rain, and sun! a rainbow in the sky! 
A young man will be wiser by and by ; 
An old man's wit may wander ere he die. 

Rain, rain, and sun ! a rainbow on the lea ! 
And truth is this to me, and that to thee; 
And truth or clothed or naked let it be. 

Rain, sun, and rain ! and the free blossom blows ; 
Sun, rain, and sun ! and where is he who knows ? 
410 From the great deep to the great deep he goes. ' ' 

^So Merlin riddling anger 'd me; but thou 
Fear not to give this King thine only child, 
Guinevere: so great bards of him will sing 
Hereafter; and dark sayings from of old 
Ranging and ringing thro' the minds of men, 
And echo'd by old folk beside their fires 
For comfort after their wage-work is done, 
Speak of the King ; and Merlin in our time 
Hath spoken also, not in jest, and sworn 
420 Tho' men may wound him that he will not die, 

But pass, again to come; and then or now 
Utterly smite the heathen underfoot, 
Till these and all men hail him for their king. ' 

She spake and King Leodogran rejoiced, 
But musing 'Shall I answer yea or nay?' 
Doubted, and drowsed, nodded and slept, and saw, 
Dreaming, a slope of land that ever grew, 



THE COMING OF AETHUR 15 

Field after field, up to a height, the peak 

Haze-hidden, and thereon a phantom king, 

Now looming, and now lost ; and on the slope 430 

The sword rose, the hind fell, the herd was driven. 

Fire glimpsed ; and all the land from roof and rick, 

In drifts of smoke before a rolling wind, 

Stream 'd to the peak, and mingled with the haze 

And made it thicker; while the phantom king 

Sent out at times a voice; and here or there 

Stood one who pointed toward the voice, the rest 

Slew on and burnt, crying, 'No king of ours, 

No son of Uther, and no king of ours ; ' 

Till with a wink his dream was changed, the haze 440 

Descended, and the solid earth became 

As nothing, but the King stood out in heaven, 

Crown 'd. And Leodogran awoke, and sent 

Ulfius, and Brastias and Bedivere, 

Back to the court of Arthur answering yea. 

Then Arthur charged his warrior whom he loved 
And honour 'd most, Sir Lancelot, to ride forth 
And bring the Queen; — and watch 'd him from the 

gates : 
And Lancelot past away among the flowers, 
(For then was latter April) and return 'd • 450 

Among the flowers, in May, with Guinevere. 
To whom arrived, by Dubric the high saint. 
Chief of the church in Britain, and before 
The stateliest of her altar-shrines, the King 
That morn was married, while in stainless white, 
The fair beginners of a nobler time, 
And glorying in their vows and him, his knights 
Stood round him, and rejoicing in his joy. 
Far shone the fields of May thro' open door, 
The sacred altar blossom 'd white with May, 460 



16 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

The Sun of May descended on their King, 
They gazed on all earth's beauty in their Queen, 
Koll'd incense, and there past along the hymns 
A voice as of the waters, while the two 
Sware at the shrine of Christ a deathless love: 
And Arthur said, 'Behold, thy doom is mine. 
Let chance what will, I love thee to the death ! ' 
To whom the Queen replied with drooping eyes, 
*King and my lord, I love thee to the death!' 
470 And holy Dubric spread his hands and spake, 

' Reign ye, and live and love, and make the world 
Other, and may thy Queen be one with thee, 
And all this Order of thy Table Round 
Fulfil the boundless purpose of their King!' 

So Dubric said ; but when they left the shrine 
Great Lords from Rome before the portal stood, 
In scornful stillness gazing as they past; 
Then while they paced a city all on fire 
With sun and cloth of gold, the trumpets blew, 
480 And Arthur's knighthood sang before the King: — 

' Blow trumpet, for the world is white with May ; 
Blow trumpet, the long night hath roll'd away! 
Blow thro' the living world — "Let the King reign." 

'Shall Rome or Heathen rule in Arthur's reahn? 
Flash brand and lance, fall battleaxe upon helm. 
Fall battleaxe, and flash brand ! Let the King reign. 

'Strike for the King and live! his knights have 
heard 
That God hath told the King a secret word. 
Fall battleaxe and flash brand ! Let the King reign. 



488. secret word: a revelation from heaven to Arthur's heart, 
giving sanction to his high purpose. 



THE COMING OF AKTHUR 17 

'Blow trumpet! he will lift us from the dust. 490 
Blow trumpet ! live the strength and die the lust ! 
Clang battleaxe, and clash brand! Let the King 
reign. 

' Strike for the King and die ! and if thou diest, 
The King is King, and ever wills the highest. 
Clang battleaxe, and clash brand ! Let the King 
reign. 

' Blow, for our Sun is mighty in his May ! 
Blow, for our Sun is mightier day by day! 
Clang battleaxe, and clash brand! Let the King 
reign. 

'The King will follow Christ, and we the King 
In whom high God hath breathed a secret thing. 500 
Fall battleaxe, and flash brand ! Let the King reign. * 

So sang the knighthood, moving to their hall. 
There at the banquet those great Lords from Rome, 
The slowly-fading mistress of the w^orld. 
Strode in, and claim 'd their tribute as of yore. 
But Arthur spake, ' Behold, for these have sworn 
To wage my wars, and worship me their King ; 
The old order changeth, yielding place to new; 
And we that fight for our fair father Christ, 
Seeing that ye be grown too weak and old 510 

To drive the heathen from your Roman wall, 
No tribute will we pay : ' so those great lords 
Drew back in wrath, and Arthur strove with Rome. 

And Arthur and his knighthood for a space 
Were all one will, and thro' that strength the King 
Drew in the petty princedoms under him. 
Fought, and in twelve great battles overcame 
The heathen hordes, and made a realm and reign 'd. ^^ 

/ 



GARETH AND LYNETTE 

The last tall son of Lot and Bellicent, 

And tallest, Gareth, in a showerful spring 

Stared at the spate. A slender-shafted Pine 

Lost footing, fell, and so was whirl'd away. 

* How he went down, ' said Gareth, ' as a false knight 

Or evil king before my lance if lance 

Were mine to use — senseless cataract, 

Bearing all down in thy precipitancy — 

And yet thou art but swollen with cold snows 

10 And mine is living blood : thou dost His will. 

The Maker's, and not knowest, and I that know. 

Have strength and wit, in my good mother 's hall 

Linger with vacillating obedience. 

Prison 'd, and kept and coax'd and whistled to — 

Since the good mother holds me still a child ! 

Good mother is bad mother unto me ! 

A worse were better; yet no worse would I. 

Heaven yield her for it, but in me put force 

To weary her ears with one continuous prayer, 

20 Until she let me fly discaged to sweep 

In ever-highering eagle-circles up 
To the great Sun of Glory, and thence swoop 
Down upon all things base, and dash them dead, 
A knight of Arthur, working out his will. 
To cleanse the world. Why, Gawain, when he came 
With Modred hither iii the summer-time. 



18, yield: r'e^ar^ pj* bless, 
18 



GARETH AND LYNETTE 19 

Ask'd me to tilt with him, the proven knight. 

Modred for want of worthier was the judge. 

Then I so shook him in the saddle, he said, 

* ' Thou hast half prevail 'd against me, ' ' said so — he — 30 

Tho' Modred biting his thin lips was mute, 

For he is alway sullen: what care IV 

And Gareth went, and hovering round her chair 
Ask'd, 'Mother, tho' ye count me still the child, 
Sweet mother, do ye love the child?' She laugh 'd, 
*Thou art but a wild-goose to question it.' 
'Then, mother, and ye love the child,' he said, 
'Being a goose and rather tame than wild, 
Hear the child's story.' 'Yea, my well-beloved, 
An 'twere but of the goose and golden eggs. ' 40 

And Gareth answer 'd her with kindling eyes, 
*Nay, nay, good mother, but this egg of mine 
Was finer gold than any goose can lay; 
For this an Eagle, a royal Eagle, laid 
Almost bej^ond eye-reach, on such a palm 
As glitters gilded in thy Book of Hours. 
And there was ever haunting round the palm 
A lusty youth, but poor, who often saw 
The splendour sparkling from aloft, and thought 
*'A^ I could climb and lay my hand upon it, 50 

Then were I wealthier than a leash of kings." 
But ever when he reach 'd a hand to climb. 
One that had loved him from his childhood, caught 
And stay'd him, "Climb not lest thou break thy 

neck, 
I charge thee by my love, ' ' and so the boy. 



46. Book of Hours: prayer-book with marginal adornments 
and pictures. 

50. an: "if" in Middle English. 



20 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

Sweet mother, neither elonib, nor brake his neck, 
And brake his very heart in pining for it, 
And past away.' 

To whom the mother said, 
*True love, sweet son, had risk'd himself and climb 'd, 
60 And handed down the c:olden treasnre to him.' 

And Gareth answer 'd her with kindling eyes, 
*Gold? said I gold? — ay then, why he, or she, 
Or whosoe'er it was, or half the world 
Had ventured — had the thing I spake of been 
!Mere gold — but this was all of that true steel, 
Whereof they forged the brand Exealibur, 
And lightnings play'd about it in the storm, 
And all the little fowl were flurried at it, 
And there were cries and elashings in the nest, 
70 That sent him from his senses: let me go.' 

Then Bellicent bemoan 'd herself and said, 
*Hast thou no pity upon my loneliness? 
Lo, where thy father Lot beside the hearth 
Lies like a log, and all but smoulder 'd out! 
For ever since when traitor to the King 
He fought against him in the Barons' war, 
And Arthur gave him back his territory. 
His age hath slowly droopt, and now lies there 
A yet-warm corpse, and yet unburiable, 
80 No more ; nor sees, nor hears, nor speaks, nor knows. 

And both thy brethren are in Arthur's hall, 
Albeit neither loved with that full love 
I feel for thee, nor worthy such a love: 
Stay therefore thou : red berries charm the bird. 
And thee, mine innocent, the jousts, the wars. 
Who never knewest finger-ache, nor pang 



GARETH AND LYXETTE 21 

Of wrench 'd or broken limb — an often chance 

In those brain-stimning shocks, and toumey-falLs, 

Frights to my heart ; but stay : follow the deer 

By these tall firs and our fast-falling bunLs; 90 

So make thy manhood mightier day by day; 

Sweet hi the chase : and I will seek thee out 

Some comfortable bride and fair, to grace 

Thy climbing life, and cherish my prone year, 

Till falling into Lot's forgetfulness 

I know not thee, myself, nor an\i:hing. 

Stay, my best son ! ye are yet more boy than man.* 

Then Gareth, 'An ye hold me yet for child, 
Hear yet once more the story of the child. 
For, mother, there was once a King, like ours. 100 

The prince hLs heir, when tall and marriageable, 
Ask'd for a bride; and thereupon the King 
Set two before him. One w^as fair, strong, arm'd — 
But to be won by force — and many men 
Desired her; one, good lack, no man desired. 
And these were the conditions of the King: 
That save he won the first by force, he needs 
Must wed that other, whom no man desired, 
A red-faced bride who knew herself so vile, 
That evermore she long'd to hide herself, 110 

Nor fronted man or woman, eye to eye — 
Yea — some she cleaved to, but they died of her. 
And one — they callVl her Fame ; and one, — O mother. 
How can ye keep me tether 'd to you — Shame. 
Man am I gvovm, a man's work must I do. 
Follow the deer? follow the Christ, the King, 
Live pure, speak true, right wrong, follow the King — 
Else, wherefore bom?' 



94. prone: declining. 



22 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

To whom the mother said, 
' Sweet son, for there be many who deem him not, 
120 Or will not deem him, wholly proven King — 

Albeit in mine own heart I kncAV him King, 
AYhen I was frequent with him in my youth. 
And heard him Kingly speak, and doubted him 
No more than he, himself; but felt him mine. 
Of closest kin to me : yet — wilt thou leave 
Thine easeful biding here, and risk thine all, 
Life, limbs, for one that is not proven King? 
Stay, till the cloud that settles round his birth 
Hath lifted but a little. Stay, sweet son.' 

130 And Gareth answer 'd quickly, *Not an hour. 

So that ye yield me — I will walk thro' fire. 
Mother, to gain it — your full leave to go. 
Not proven, who swept the dust of ruin'd Rome 
From off the threshold of the realm, and crush 'd 
The Idolaters, and made the people free? 
Who should be King save him who makes us free ? 

So when the Queen, who long had sought in vain 
To break him from the intent to which he grew, 
Found her son's will unwaveringly one, 
140 She answer 'd craftily, 'Will ye walk thro' fire? 

Who walks thro' fire will hardly heed the smoke. 
Ay, go then, an je must: only one proof. 
Before thou ask the King to make thee knight, 
Of thine obedience and thy love to me, 
Thy mother, — I demand.' 

And Gareth cried, 
'A hard one, or a hundred, so I go. 
Nay — quick ! the proof to prove me to the quick ! ' 



GAKETH AND LYNETTE *23 

But slowly spake the mother looking at him, 
'Prince, thou shalt go disguised to Arthur's hall, 
And hire thyself to serve for meats and drinks 150 

Among the scullions and the kitchen-knaves, 
And those that hand the dish across the bar. 
Nor shalt thou tell thy name to any one. 
And thou shalt serve a twelvemonth and a day.' 

For so the Queen believed that when her son 
Beheld his only way to glory lead 
Low down thro' villain kitchen -vassalage. 
Her own true Gareth was too princely-proud 
To pass thereby ; so should he rest with her, 
Closed in her castle from the sound of arms. 160 

Silent awhile was Gareth, then replied, 
'The thrall in person may be free in soul. 
And I shall see the jousts. Thy son am I, 
And since thou art my mother, must obey. 
I therefore yield me freely to thy will; 
For hence will I, disguised, and hire myself 
To serve with scullions and with kitchen-knaves; 
Nor tell my name to any — no, not the King.* 

Gareth awhile linger 'd. The mother's eye 
Full of the wistful fear that he would go, 170 

And turning toward him wheresoe'er he turn'd, 
Perplext his outward purpose, till an hour. 
When waken 'd by the wind which with full voice 
Swept bellowing thro' the darkness on to dawn, 
He rose, and out of slumber calling two 
That still had tended on him from his birth. 
Before the wakeful mother heard him, went. 



157. villain: in its original feudal meaning, servile. 



24* IDYLLS OF THE KING 

The three were clad like tillers of the soil. 
Southward they set their faces. The birds made 
180 Melody on branch, and melody in mid air. 

The damp hill-slopes were quicken 'd into green, 
And the live green had kindled into flowers, 
For it was past the time of Easterday. 

So, when their feet were planted on the plain 
That broaden 'd toward the base of Camelot, 
Far ofl:' they saw the silver-misty morn 
Rolling her smoke about the Royal mount, 
That rose between the forest and the field. 
At times the summit of the high city flash 'd; 
190 At times the spires and turrets half-way down 

Prick 'd thro ' the mist ; at times the great gate shone 
Only, that open'd on the field below: 
Anon, the whole fair city had disappear 'd. 

Then those who went with Gareth were amazed, 
One crying, 'Let us go no further, lord. 
Here is a city of Enchanters, built 
By fairy Kings.' The second echo'd him, 
'Lord, we have heard from our wise man at home 
To Northward, that this King is not the King, 
200 But only changeling out of Fairyland, 

Who drave the heathen hence by sorcery 
And Merlin's glamour.' Then the first again, 
'Lord, there is no such city anywhere. 
But all a vision.' 



185. Camelot: Arthur's capital, located in Hampshire at or 
near Winchester; or at Caerleon-on-Usk in Monmouthshire, Wales; 
or in the parish of Queen Camel in Somersetsliire. 

199. To Northward. The Orkneys are north of Scotland. 



GARETH AND LYXETTE 25 

Gareth answer 'd them 
With laughter, swearing he had glamour enow 
In his own blood, his princedom, youth and hopes, 
To plunge old Merlin in the Arabian sea; 
So push'd them all unwilling toward the gate. 
And there was no gate like it under heaven. 
For barefoot on the keystone, w^hich was lined 210 

And rippled like an ever-fleeting wave, 
The Lady of the Lake stood : all her dress 
Wept from her sides as water flowing away ; 
But like the cross her great and goodly arms 
Stretch 'd under all the cornice and upheld: 
And drops of water fell from either hand ; 
And down from one a sword was hung, from one 
A censer, either worn with wind and storm; 
And 'er her breast floated the sacred fish ; 
And in the space to left of her, and right, 220 

Were Arthur's wars in weird devices done, 
New things and old co-twisted, as if Time 
Were nothing, so inveterately, that men 
Were giddy gazing there; and over all 
High on the top were those three Queens, the friends 
Of Arthur, who should help him at his need. 

Then those with Gareth for so long a space 
Stared at the figures, that at last it seem'd 
The dragon-boughts and elvish emblemings 
Began to move, seethe, twine and curl : they call 'd 230 
To Gareth, 'Lord, the gateway is alive.' 



219. the sacred fish. The fish was adopted by the early 
church as its sjinbol, because the Greek word for fish ('IX0T'2), 
is made up of the initial letters of the name and titles of Christ: 
'Iritrovs Xpiarhs 0€oD fihs 'Zoniip, Jesus Christ, God's Son, Saviour. 



26 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

And Gareth likewise on them fixt his eyes 
So long, that ev'n to him they seem'd to move. 
Out of the city a blast of music peal'd. 
Back from the gate started the three, to whom 
From out thereunder came an ancient man, 
Long-bearded, saying, 'Who be ye, my sons?' 

Then Gareth, 'We be tillers of the soil, 
Who leaving share in furrow come to see 
240 The glories of our King: but these, my men, 

(Your city moved so weirdly in the mist) 
Doubt if the King be King at all, or come 
From Fairyland; and whether this be built 
By magic, and by fairy Kings and Queens: 
Or whether there be any city at all. 
Or all a vision : and this music now 
Hath scared them both, but tell thou these the truth. ' 

Then that old Seer made answer playing on hint 
And saying, ' Son, I have seen the good ship sail 

250 Keel upward, and mast downward, in the heavens. 

And solid turrets topsy-tur\y in air: 
And here is truth ; but an it please thee not, 
Take thou the truth as thou hast told it me. 
For truly as thou sayest, a Fairy King 
And Fairy Queens have built the city, son ; 
Thej^ came from out a sacred mountain-cleft 
Toward the sunrise, each with harp in hand, 
And built it to the music of their harps. 
And, as thou sayest, it is enchanted, son, 

260 For there is nothing in it as it seems 

-> Saving the King; tho' some there be that hold 



236. an ancient man: Merlin. 
250, Keel upward, etc; a mirage. 



GAKETH AXD LYNETTE 27 

The King a shadow, and the city real : 

Yet take thou heed of him, for, so thou pass 

Beneath this archway, then wilt thou become 

A thrall to his enchantments, for the King 

Will bind thee by such vows, as is a shame 

A man should not be bound by, yet the which 

No man can keep; but, so thou dread to swear, 

Pass not beneath this gateway, but abide 

"Without, among the cattle of the field. 270 

For an ye heard a music, like enow 

They are building still, seeing the city is built 

To music, therefore never built at all, 

And therefore built for ever.' 

Gareth spake, 
Anger 'd, 'Old Master, reverence thine own beard 
That looks as white as utter truth, and seems 
Wellnigh as long as thou art statured tall! 
Why mockest thou the stranger that hath been 
To thee fair-spoken?' 

But the Seer replied, 
'Know ye not then the Riddling of the Bards? 28C 

*' Confusion, and illusion, and relation. 
Elusion, and occasion, and evasion"? 
I mock thee not but as thou mockest me, 
And all that see thee, for thou art not who 
Thou seemest, but I know thee who thou art. 
And now thou goest up to mock the King, 
Who cannot brook the shadow of any lie.' 

Unmockingly the mocker ending here 
Turn'd to the right, and past along the plain; 



275. Anger'd. Gareth fails to understand the allegory; 
thinks the old man is quibbling and mocking. 



28 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

290 Whom Gareth looking after said, ']\Iy men, 
Our one white lie sits like a little ghost 
Here on the threshold of our enterprise. 
Let love be blamed for it, not she, nor I : 
Well, we will make amends.' 

With all good cheer 
He spake and laugh 'd, then enter 'd with his twain 
Camelot, a city of shadowy palaces 
And stately, rich in emblem and the work 
Of ancient kings who did their days in stone; 
Which Merlin's hand, the Mage at Arthur's court, 
300 Knowing all arts, had touch 'd, and everywhere 

At Arthur's ordinance, tipt with lessening peak 
And pinnacle, and had made it spire to heaven. 
And ever and anon a knight would pass 
Outward, or inward to the hall: his arms 
Clash 'd; and the sound was good to Gareth 's ear. 
And out of bower and casement shyly glanced 
Eyes of pure women, wholesome stars of love; 
And all about a healthful people stept 
As in the presence of a gracious king. 

310 f Then into hall Gareth ascending heard 
A voice, the voice of Arthur, and beheld 
Far over heads in that long-vaulted hall 
The splendour of the presence of the King 
Thron 'd, and delivering doom — and look 'd no more— 
But felt his young heart hammering in his ears, 
And thought, 'For this half-shadow of a lie 
The truthful King will doom me when I speak. ' 
Yet pressing on, tho' all in fear to find 



298. did their days: carved their deeds. 
314. doom: royal justice. 



GARETH AND LYXETTE 29 

Sir Gawain or Sir Modred, saw nor one 

Nor other, but in all the listening eyes 320 

Of those tall knights, that ranged about the throne. 

Clear honour shining like the dewy star 

Of dawn, and faith in their great King, with pure 

Affection, and the light of victory, 

And glory gain'd, and evermore to gain. 

Then came a widow crying to the King, 
'A boon, Sir King! Thy father, Uther, reft 
From my dear lord a field with violence : 
For howsoe'er at first he proffer 'd gold, 
Yet, for the field was pleasant in our eyes, 330 

We yielded not; and then he reft us of it 
Perforce, and left us neither gold nor field.' 

Said Arthur, 'Whether would ye? gold or field T 
To whom the woman weeping, 'Nay, my lord. 
The field was pleasant in my husband's eye.' 

And Arthur, 'Have thy pleasant field again. 
And thrice the gold for Uther 's use thereof. 
According to the years. No boon is here. 
But justice, so thy say be proven true. 
Accursed, who from the wrongs his father did 340 

Would shape himself a right!' 

And while she past. 
Came yet another widow crying to him, 
'A boon, Sir King! Thine enemy, King, am I. 
With thine own hand thou slewest my dear lord, 
A knight of Uther in the Barons' war. 
When Lot and many another rose and fought 
Against thee, saying thou wert basely born. 
I held with these, and loathe to ask thee aught. 
3 



30 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

Yet lo ! my husband 's brother had my son 
350 Thrall 'd in his castle, and hath starved him dead ; 

And standeth seized of that inheritance 
Which thou that slewest the sire hast left the son. 
So tho' I scarce can ask it thee for hate, 
Grant me some knight to do the battle for me, 
Kill the foul thief, and wreak me for my son/ 

Then strode a good knight forward, crying to him, 
*A boon. Sir King! I am her kinsman, I. 
Give me to right her wrong, and slay the man. ' 

Then came Sir Kay, the seneschal, and cried, 
360 *A boon. Sir King! ev'n that thou grant her none, 

This railer, that hath mock'd thee in full hall — 
None ; or the wholesome boon of gjYe and gag. ' 

But Arthur, 'We sit King, to help the wronged 
Thro' all our realm. The woman loves her lord. 
Peace to thee, woman, with thy loves and hates ! 
The kings of old had doom 'd thee to the flames, 
Aurelius Emrys would have scourged thee dead, 
And Uther slit thy tongue : but get thee hence — 
Lest that rough humour of the kings of old 
370 Return upon me ! Thou that art her kin, 

Go likewise; lay him low and slay him not. 
But bring him here, that I may judge the right. 
According to the justice of the King: 
Then, be he guilty, by that deathless King 
Who lived and died for men, the man shall die. ' 

Then came in hall the messenger of Mark, 
A name of evil savour in the land. 



351. seized of: possessed of. 
355. wreak me: avenge me. 



GARETH AND LYNETTE 31 

The Cornish king. In either hand he bore 

What dazzled all, and shone far-off as shines 

A field of charlock in the sudden sun 380 

Between two showers, a cloth of palest gold, 

Which down he laid before the throne, and knelt. 

Delivering, that his lord, the vassal king, 

Was ev'n upon his way to Camelot; 

For having heard that Arthur of his grace 

Had made his goodly cousin, Tristram, knight. 

And, for himself was of the greater state. 

Being a king, he trusted his liege-lord 

Would yield him this large honour all the more ; 

So pray'd him well to accept this cloth of gold, 390 

In token of true heart and fealty. 

Then Arthur cried to rend the cloth, to rend 
In pieces, and so cast it on the hearth. 
An oak-tree smouldered there. 'The goodl}^ knight! 
What! shall the shield of Mark stand among 

these 1 
For, midway down the side of that long hall 
A stately pile, — whereof along the front, 
Some blazon 'd, some but carven, and some blank, 
There ran a treble range of stony shields, — 
Rose, and high-arching overbrow'd the hearth. 400 

And under every shield a knight was named : 
For this was Arthur's custom in his hall; 
When some good knight had done one noble deed, 
His arms were carven only ; but if twain 
His arms were blazon 'd also; but if none. 
The shield was blank and bare without a sign 
Saving the name beneath; and Gareth saw 
The shield of Gawain blazon 'd rich and bright. 
And Modred's blank as death; and Arthur cried 
To rend the cloth and cast it on the hearth, 410 



32 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

'More like are we to reave him of his crown 
Than make him knight because men call him king. 
The kings we found, ye know we stay'd their hands 
From war among themselves, but left them kings ; 
Of whom were any bounteous, merciful, 
Truth-speaking, brave, good livers, them we enrolled 
Among us, and they sit within our hall. 
But Mark hath tarnish 'd the great name of king, 
As I^Iark would sully the low state of churl : 
420 And-, seeing he hath sent us cloth of gold. 

Return, and meet, and hold him from our eyes. 
Lest we should lap him up in cloth of lead, 
Silenced for ever — craven — a man of plots. 
Crafts, poisonous counsels, wayside ambushings — 
No fault of thine : let Kay the seneschal 
Look to thy wants, and send thee satisfied — 
Accursed, who strikes nor lets the hand be seen ! ' 

And many another suppliant crying came 
With noise of ravage wrought by beast and man, 
430 And evermore a knight would ride away. 

Last, Gareth leaning both hands heavily 
Down on the shoulders of the twain, his men, 
Approach 'd between them toward the King, and 

ask 'd, 
'A boon. Sir King (his voice was all ashamed), 
For see ye not how weak and hungerworn 
I seem — leaning on these? grant me to serve 
For meat and drink among thy kitchen-knaves 
A twelvemonth and a day, nor seek my name. 
Hereafter I will fight.' 

To him the King, 
440 'A goodly youth and worth a goodlier boon! 



GARETH AND LYNETTE 33 

But so thou wilt no goodlier, then must Kay, 
The master of the meats and drinks, be thine. ' 

He rose and past; then Kay, a man of mien 
Wan-sallow as the plant that feels itself 
Root-bitten by white lichen, 

'Lo ye now! 
This fellow hath broken from some Abbey, w^here, 
God wot, he had not beef and brewis enow. 
However that might chance ! but an he work, 
Like any pigeon will I cram his crop, 
And sleeker shall he shine than any hog/ A'A) 

Then Lancelot standing near, 'Sir Seneschal, 
Sleuth-hound thou knowest, and gray, and all the 

hounds ; 
A horse thou knowest, a man thou dost not know : 
Broad brows and fair, a fluent hair and fine, 
High nose, a nostril large and fine, and hands 
Large, fair and fine! — Some young lad's mystery — 
But, or from sheepcot or king's hall, the boy 
Is noble-natured. Treat him with all grace, 
Lest he should come to shame thy judging of him. ' 

Then Kay, 'What murmurest thou of mystery? 4G0 
Think ye this fellow will poison the King's dish? 
Nay, for he spake too fool-like: mystery! 
Tut, an the lad were noble, he had ask'd 
For horse and armour : fair and fine, forsooth ! 
Sir Fine-face, Sir Fair-hands? but see thou to it 
That thine own fineness, Lancelot, some fine day 
Undo thee not — and leave my man to me.' 

So Gareth all for glory underwent 
The sooty yoke of kitchen-vassalage ; 



34 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

470 Ate with young lads his portion by the door, 

And couch 'd at night with grimy kitchen-knaves. 
And Lancelot ever spake him pleasantly, 
But Kay, the seneschal, who loved him not, 
Would hustle and harry him, and labour him 
Beyond his comrade of the hearth, and set 
To turn the broach, draw water, or hew wood, 
Or grosser tasks; and Gareth bow'd himself 
With all obedience to the King, and wrought 
All kind of service with a noble ease 

480 That graced the lowliest act in doing it. 

And when the thralls had talk among themselves, 
And one would praise the love that linkt the King 
And Lancelot — how the King had saved his life 
In battle twice, and Lancelot once the King's — 
For Lancelot was the first in Tournament, 
But Arthur mightiest on the battle-field — 
Gareth was glad. Or if some other told, 
How once the wandering forester at dawn, 
Far over the blue tarns and hazy seas, 

490 On Caer-Eryri's highest found the King, 

A naked babe, of whom the Prophet spake, 
r7*He passes to the Isle Avilion, 
He passes and is heal'd and cannot die' — 
Gareth was glad. But if their talk were foul, 
Then would he whistle rapid as any lark. 
Or carol some old roundelay, and so loud 
That first they mock'd, but, after, reverenced him. 
Or Gareth telling some prodigious tale 
Of knights, who sliced a red life-bubbling way 

500 Thro' twenty folds of twisted dragon, held 

All in a gap-mouth 'd circle his good mates 
Lying or sitting round him, idle hands, 



490. Caer-Eryri: Snowdon, the highest moyntain in Britain. 



GARETH AND LYNETTE 35 

Charm 'd ; till Sir Kay, the seneschal, would come 

Blustering upon them, like a sudden wind 

Among dead leaves, and drive them all apart. 

Or when the thralls had sport among themselves, 

So there were any trial of mastery, 

He, by two yards in casting bar or stone 

Was counted best ; and if there chanced a joust, 

So that Sir Kay nodded him leave to go, 510 

Would hurry thither, and when he saw the knights 

Clash like the coming and retiring wave, 

And the spear spring, and good horse reel, the boy 

Was half beyond himself for ecstasy. ^ 

So for a month he wrought among the thralls ; 
But in the weeks that follow 'd, the good Queen, 
Repentant of the word she made him swear, 
And saddening in her childless castle, sent, 
Between the in-crescent and de-crescent moon, 
Arms for her son, and loosed him from his vow. 620 

This, Gareth hearing from a squire of Lot 
With whom he used to play at tourney once, 
When both were children, and in lonely haunts 
Would scratch a ragged oval on the sand. 
And each at either dash from either end — 
Shame never made girl redder than Gareth joy. 
He laugh 'd ; he sprang. ' Out of the smoke, at once 
I leap from Satan's foot to Peter's knee — 
These news be mine, none other 's — nay, the King 's — 
Descend into the city : ' whereon he sought 530 

The King alone, and found, and told him all. 



516. Queen: Bellicent. 

528. From Satan's foot to Peter's knee: from hell to heaven; 
from Kay to Arthur, 



36 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

*I have stagger 'd thy strong Gawain in a tilt 
For pastime ; yea, he said it : joust can I. 
Make me thy knight — in secret! let my name 
Be hidd'n, and give me the first quest, I spring 
Like flame from ashes.' 

Here the King's calm eye 
Fell on, and check 'd, and made him flush, and bow 
Lowly, to kiss his hand, who answer 'd him, 
'Son, the good mother let me know thee here, 
540 And sent her wish that I would yield thee thine. 

■\y Make thee my knight % my knights are sworn to vows 
Of utter hardihood, utter gentleness, 
And, loving, utter faithfulness in love, 
And uttermost obedience to the King.' 

Then Gareth, lightly springing from his knees, 
*My King, for hardihood I can promise thee. 
For uttermost obedience make demand 
Of whom ye gave me to, the Seneschal, 
No mellow master of the meats and drinks ! 
550 And as for love, God wot, I love not yet, 

But love I shall, God willing.' 

And the King — 
'Make thee my knight in secret? yea, but he. 
Our noblest brother, and our truest man, 
And one with me in all, he needs must know. ' 

'Let Lancelot know, my King, let Lancelot know. 
Thy noblest and thy truest ! ' 

And the King — 
' But wherefore would ye men should wonder at you % 
Nay, rather for the sake of me, their King, 
And the deed's sake my knighthood do the deed, 
Than to be noised of.' 



GARETH AND LYNETTE 37 

Merrily Gareth ask'd, 560 
' Have I not earn 'd my cake in baking of it ? 
Let be my name until I make my name ! 
My deeds will speak : it is but for a day. ' 
So with a kindly hand on Gareth 's arm 
Smiled the great King, and half -unwillingly 
Loving his lusty youthhood yielded to him. 
Then after summoning Lancelot privily, 
* I have given him 'the first quest : he is not proven. 
Look therefore when he calls for this in hall, 
Thou get to horse and follow him far away. 570 

Cover the lions on thy shield, and see 
Far as thou mayest, he be nor ta'en nor slain.' 

Then that same day there past into the hall 
A damsel of high lineage, and a brow 
May-blossom, and a cheek of apple-blossom, 
Hawk-eyes ; and lightly was her slender nose 
Tip-tilted like the petal of a flower; 
She into hall past with her page and cried, 

'0 King, for thou hast driven the foe without. 
See to the foe within ! bridge, ford, beset 580 

By bandits, everyone that owns a tower 
The Lord for half a league. Why sit ye there? 
Rest would I not. Sir King, an I were king, 
Till ev'n the lonest hold were all as free 
From cursed bloodshed, as thine altar-cloth 
From- that best blood it is a sin to spill. ' 

'Comfort thyself,' said Arthur, 'I nor mine 
Rest: so my knighthood keep the vows they swore. 
The wastest moorland of our realm shall be 
Safe, damsel, as the centre of this hall. 590 

What is thy name ? thy need ? ' 



38 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

'My name?' she said — 
*Lynette my name; noble; my need, a knight 
To combat for my sister, Lyonors, 
A lady of high lineage, of great lands, 
And comely, yea, and comelier than myself. 
She lives in Castle Perilous : a river 
Runs in three loops about her living place; 
And o'er it are three passings, and three knights 
Defend the passings, brethren, and a fourth 
And of that four the mightiest, holds her stayed 
In her own castle, and so besieges her 
To break her will, and make her wed with him : 
And but delays his purport till thou send 
To do the battle with him, thy chief man 
Sir Lancelot whom he trusts to overthrow, 
Then wed, with glory : but she will not wed 
Save whom she loveth, or a holy life. 
Now therefore have I come for Lancelot.' 

Then Arthur mindful of Sir Gareth ask'd, 
* Damsel, ye know this Order lives to crush 
All wrongers of the Realm. But say, these four, 
Who be they ? What the fashion of the men ? ' 

*They be of foolish fashion, Sir King, 
The fashion of that old knight-errantry 
Who ride abroad, and do but what they will ; 
Courteous or bestial from the moment, such 
As have nor law nor king ; and three of these 
Proud in their fantasy call themselves the Day, 
Morning-Star, and Noon-Sun, and Evening-Star, 



610. This Order: the Round Table. 

614. That old knight-errantry: lawless knights ante-dating 
Arthur, and not acknowledging him as leader. 

616. from the moment: i. e., from the impulse of the moment. 



GARETH AND LYNETTE 39 , 

Being strong fools ; and never a whit more wise 620 

The fourth, who always rideth arm'd in black, 

A huge man-beast of boundless savagery. 

He names himself the Night and oftener Death, 

And wears a helmet mounted with a skull, 

And bears a skeleton figured on his arms, 

To show that who may slay or scape the three, 

Slain by himself, shall enter endless night. 

And all these four be fools, but mighty men. 

And therefore am I come for Lancelot. ' 

Hereat Sir Gareth call'd from where he rose, 630 
A head with kindling eyes above the throng, 
' A boon, Sir King — this quest ! ' then — for he mark 'd 
Kay near him groaning like a wounded bull — 
'Yea, King, thou knowest thy kitchen knave am I, 
And mighty thro' thy meats and drinks am I, 
And I can topple over a hundred such. 
Thy promise, King,' and Arthur glancing at him. 
Brought down a momentary brow. ' Rough, sudden. 
And pardonable, worthy to be knight — 
Go therefore,' and all hearers were amazed. 640 

But on the damsel 's forehead shame, pride, wrath 
Slew the May- white : she lifted either arm, 
* Fie on thee, King ! I ask 'd for thy chief knight. 
And thou hast given me but a kitchen-knave.' 
Then ere a man in hall could stay her, turn'd, 
Fled down the lane of access to the King, 
Took horse, descended the slope street, and past 
The weird white gate, and paused without, beside 
The field of tourney, murmuring 'kitchen-knave.' 

Now two great entries open'd from the hall, 650 
At one end one, that gave upop a range 



40 IDYLLS OF THE KIXG 

' Of level pavement where the King would pace 
At sunrise, gazing over plain and wood; 
And down from this a lordly stairway sloped 
Till lost in blowing trees and tops of towers ; 
And out by this main doorway past the King. 
But one was counter to the hearth, and rose 
High that the highest-crested helm could ride 
Therethro ' nor graze : and by this entry fled 

I The damsel in her wrath, and on to this 

Sir Gareth strode, and saw without the door 
King Arthur's gift, the worth of half a town, 
A warhorse of the best, and near it stood 
The two that out of north had follow 'd him: 
This bare a maiden shield, a casque; that held 
The horse, the spear ; whereat Sir Gareth loosed 
A cloak that dropt from collar-bone to heel, 
A cloth of roughest web, and cast it down, 
And from it like a fuel-smother 'd fire, 

I That lookt half -dead, brake bright, and flash 'd as 

those 
Dull-coated things, that making slide apart ' 

Their dusk wing-cases, all beneath there burns 
A Jewell 'd harness, ere they pass and fly. 
So Gareth ere he parted flash 'd in arms. 
Then as he donn'd the helm, and took the shield 
And mounted horse and graspt a spear, of grain 
Storm-strengthen 'd on a windy site, and tipt 
With trenchant steel, around him slowly prest 
The people, while from out of kitchen came 

) The thralLs in throng, and seeing who had work'd 

Lustier than any, and whom they could but love, 
Mounted in arms, threw up their caps and cried, 
' God bless the King, and all his fellowship ! ' 



671. Dull-coated things: beetles. 



GARETH AXD LTXETTE 41 

And on thro ' lanes of shouting Gareth rode 
Down the slope street, and past without the gate. 

So Gareth past with joy : but as the cur 
Pluckt from the cur he fights with, ere his cause 
Be cool 'd by fighting, follows, being named. 
His owner, but remembers all, and growls 
Remembering, so Sir Kay beside the door 690 

flutter 'd in scorn of Gareth whom he used 
To harry and hustle. 

*Boiuid upon a quest 
"With horse and arms — the King hath past his time — 
My scullion knave! Thralls to your work again, 
For an your fire be low ye kindle mine ! 
Will there be dawn in West and eve in East ? 
Begone ! — my knave I — belike and like enow 
Some old head-blow not heeded in his youth 
So shook his wits they wander in his prime — 
Crazed ! How the villain lifted up his voice, 700 

Nor shamed to bawl himself a kitchen-knave. 
Tut : he was tame and meek enow with me, 
Till peacock 'd up with Lancelot's noticing. 
Well — I will after my loud knave, and learn 
Whether he know me for his master yet. 
Out of the smoke he came, and so my lance 
Hold, by God's grace, he shall into the mire — 
Thence, if the King awaken from his craze. 
Into the smoke again.' 

But Lancelot said, 
*Kay, wherefore wilt thou go against the King, 710 
For that did never he whereon ye rail. 
But ever meekly served the King in thee ? 
Abide : take counsel ; for this lad is great 
And lustv, and knowing both of lance and sword.' 



42 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

*Tiit, tell not me,' said Kay, 'ye are overfine 
To mar stout knaves with foolish courtesies:' 
Then mounted, on thro' silent faces rode 
Down the slope city, and out beyond the gate. 

But by the field of tourney lingering yet 
720 Mutter 'd the damsel, 'Wherefore did the King 

Scorn me ? for, were Sir Lancelot lackt, at Jeast 
He might have yielded to me one of those 
Who tilt for lady's love and glory here, 
Rather than — sweet heaven ! fie upon him — 
His kitchen-knave/ 

To whom Sir Gareth drew 
(And there were none but few goodlier than he) 
Shining in arms, 'Damsel, the quest is mine. 
Lead, and I follow.' She thereat, as one 
That smells a foul-flesh 'd agaric in the holt, 
rSO And deems it carrion of some woodland thing, 

Or shrew, or weasel, nipt her slender nose 
With petulant thumb and finger, shrilling, ' Hence ! 
Avoid, thou smellest all of kitchen-grease. 
And look who comes behind,' for there was Kay. 
'Knowest thou not me? thy master? I am Kay. 
We lack thee by the hearth. ' 

And Gareth to him, 
* Master no more! too well I know thee, ay — 
The most ungentle knight in Arthur's hall.' 
'Have at thee then,' said Kay: they shock 'd, and 
Kay 
740 Fell shoulder-slipt, and Gareth cried again, 

'Lead, and I follow,' and fast away she fled. 



733. avoid: to make void— i. e., rid the place of yourself. 



GARETH AND LYNETTE 43 

But after sod and shingle ceased to fly 
Behind her, and the heart of her good horse 
Was nigh to burst with violence of the beat, 
Perforce she stay'd, and overtaken spoke. 

'What docst thou, scullion, in my fellowship? 
Deem'st thou that I accept thee aught the more 
Or love thee better, that by some device 
Full cowardly, or by mere unhappiness. 
Thou hast overthrown and slain thy master — thou ! — 750 
Dish-washer and broach-turner, loon ! — to me 
Thou smellest all of kitchen as before.' 

'Damsel,' Sir Gareth answer 'd gently, 'say 
Whate'er ye will, but whatsoe'er ye say, 
I leave not till I finish this fair quest, 
Or die therefore.' 

*Ay, wilt thou finish it? 
Sweet lord, how like a noble knight he talks ! 
The listening rogue hath caught the manner of it. 
But, knave, anon thou shalt be met with, knave, 
And then by such a one that thou for all 760 

The kitchen brewis that was ever supt 
Shalt not once dare to look him in the face. ' 

'I shall assay,' said Gareth with a smile 
That madden 'd her, and away she flash 'd again 
Down the long avenues of a boundless wood, 
And Gareth following was again beknaved. 

' Sir Kitchen-knave, I have miss 'd the only way 
Where Arthur's men are set along the wood; 
The wood is nigh as full of thieves as leaves : 



766. beknaved: called knave; used in the Old English sense 
to mean * a boy servant ' or * menial.' 



44 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

I If both be slain, I am rid of thee ; but yet, 

Sir Scullion, canst thou use that spit of thine ? 
Fight, an thou canst : I have miss'd the only way.* 

So till the dusk that follow 'd evensong 
Rode on the two, reviler and reviled ; 
Then after one long slope was mounted, saw, 
Bowl-shaped, thro ' tops of many thousand pines 
A gloomy-gladed hollow slowly sink 
To westward — in the deeps whereof a mere, 
Round as the red eye of an Eagle-owl, 
Under the half -dead sunset glared ; and shouts 
Ascended, and there brake a serving man 
Flying from out of the black wood, and crying, 
'They have bound my lord to cast him in the mere/ 
Then Gareth, 'Bound am I to right the wrong 'd, 
But straitlier bound am I to bide with thee. ' 
And when the damsel spake contemptuously, 
'Lead, and I follow,' Gareth cried again, 
'Follow, I lead!' so down among the pines 
He plunged; and there, blackshadow 'd nigh the 

mere. 
And mid-thigh-deep in bulrushes and reed, 
Saw six tall men hailing a seventh along, 
A stone about his neck to drown him in it. 
Three with good blows he quieted, but three 
Fled thro ' the pines ; and Gareth loosed the stone 
From off his neck, then in the mere beside 
Tumbled it; oilily bubbled up the mere. 
Last, Gareth loosed his bonds and on free feet 
Set him, a stalwart Baron, Arthur's friend. 

* Well that ye came, or else these caitiff rogues 
Had wreak 'd themselves on me ; good cause is theirs 
To hate me, for my wont hath ever been 



GARETH AND LYNETTE 45 

To catch my thief, and then like vermin here 
DrowTi him, and with a stone about his neck ; 
And under this wan water many of them 
Lie rotting, but at night let go the stone, 
And rise, and flickering in a grimly light 
Dance on the mere. Good now, ye have saved a life 
Worth somewhat as the cleanser of this wood. 
And fain would I reward thee worshipfuUy. 
What guerdon will yeV 

Gareth sharply spake, 81C 
'None! for the deed's sake have I done the deed, 
In uttermost obedience to the King. 
But wilt thou yield this damsel harbourage V 

Whereat the Baron saying, ^I well believe 
You be of Arthur's Table,' a light laugh 
Broke from Lynette, 'Ay, truly of a truth. 
And in a sort, being Arthur's kitchen-knave! — 
But deem not I accept thee aught the more, 
Scullion, for running sharply with thy spit 
Down on a rout of craven foresters. 820 

A thresher with his flail had scatter 'd them. 
Nay — for thou smellest of the kitchen still. 
But an this lord will yield us harbourage, well/ 

So she spake. A league beyond the wood, 
All in a full-fair manor and a rich. 
His towers where that day a feast had been 
Held in high hall, and many a viand left, 
And many a costly cate, received the three. 
And there they placed a peacock in his pride 
Before the damsel, and the Baron set 830 

Gareth beside her, but at once she rose. 



811. For the deed's sake. Cf. 558-560 ante. 



46 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

'Meseenis, that here is much discourtesy, 
Setting this knave, Lord Baron, at my side. 
Hear me — this morn I stood in Arthur's hall, 
And pray 'd the King would grant me Lancelot 
To fight the brotherhood of Day and Night — 
The last a monster unsubduable 
Of any save of him for whom I call'd — 
Suddenly bawls this frontless kitchen-knave, 
840 * ' The quest is mine ; thy kitchen-knave am I, 

And mighty thro' thy meats and drinks am I/' 
Then Arthur all at once gone mad replies, 
* ' Go therefore, ' ' and so gives the quest to him — 
Him — here — a \dllain fitter to stick swine 
Than ride abroad redressing woman's wrong, 
Or sit beside a noble gentlewoman,' 

Then half-ashamed and part-amazed, the lord 
Now look'd at one and now at other, left 
The damsel by the peacock in his pride, 
850 And, seating Gareth at another board. 

Sat down beside him, ate and then began. 

'Friend, whether thou be kitchen-knave, oi uot. 
Or whether it be the maiden 's fantasy. 
And whether she be mad, or else the King, 
Or both or neither, or thyself be mad, 
I ask not : but thou strikest a strong stroke, 
For strong thou art and goodly therewithal. 
And saver of my life; and therefore now. 
For here be mighty men to joust with, weigh 
860 Whether thou wilt not with thy damsel back 

To crave again Sir Lancelot of the King. 
Thy pardon ; I but speak for thine avail, 
The saver of my life.' 



GARETH AND LYNETTE 47 

And Gareth said, 

* Full pardon, but I follow up the quest, 
Despite of Day and Night and Death and Hell/ 

So when, next morn, the lord whose life he saved 
Had, some brief space, convey 'd them on their way 
And left them with God-speed, Sir Gareth spake, 
*Lead, and I follow.' Haughtily she replied, 

* I fly no more : I allow thee for an hour. 870 

Lion and stoat have isled together, knave, 
In time of flood. Nay, furthermore, methinks 
Some ruth is mine for thee. Back wilt thou, fool? 
For hard by here is one will overthrow . 

And slay thee: then will I to court again, 
And shame the King for only yielding me 
My champion from the ashes of his hearth.' 

To whom Sir Gareth answer 'd courteously, 

* Say thou thy say, and I will do my deed. 

Allow me for mine hour, and thou wilt find 880 

My fortunes all as fair as hers who lay 
Among the ashes and wedded the King's son.' 

Then to the shore of one of those long loops 
Wherethro' the serpent river coil'd, they came. 
Rough-thicketed were the banks and steep; the 

stream 
Full, narrow ; this a bridge of single arc 
Took at a leap ; and on the further side 
Arose a silk pavilion, gay with gold 
In streaks and rays, and all Lent-lily in hue, 
Save that the dome was purple, and above, 890 



881. As hers who lay: Cinderella. 

889. Lent-lily: the daffodil blossoming in Lent. 



48 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

Crimson, a slender banneret fluttering. 

And tlierebefore the lawless warrior paced 

Unarm 'd, and calling, 'Damsel, is this he, 

The champion thou hast brought from Arthur's 

hall? 
For whom we let thee pass. ' * Nay, nay, ' she said, 
'Sir Morning-Star. The King in utter scorn 
Of thee and thy much folly hath sent thee here 
His kitchen-knave : and look thou to thj^self : 
See that he fall not on thee suddenly, 
900 And slay thee unarm 'd : he is not knight but knave. ' 

Then at his call, ' daughters of the Dawn, 
And servants of the Morning-Star, approach, 
Arm me,' from out of the silken curtainfolds 
Bare-footed and bare-headed three fair girls 
In gilt and rosy raiment came: their feet 
In dewy grasses glisten 'd; and the hair 
All over glanced with dewdrop or with gem 
Like sparkles in the stone Avanturine. 
These arm'd him in blue arms, and gave a shield 
910 Blue also, and thereon the morning star. 

And Gareth silent gazed upon the knight. 
Who stood a moment, ere his horse was brought, 
Glorying; and in the stream beneath him, shone 
Immingled with Heaven's azure waveringly, 
The gay pavilion and the naked feet, 
His arms, the rosy raiment, and the star. 

Then she that watch 'd him, 'Wherefore stare ye 
so? 
Thou shakest in thy fear : there yet is time : 



908. Avanturine: spelled usually aventurine, a translucent 
quartz spangled with scales of yellow mica. 



GARETH AND LYNETTE 49 

Flee down the valley before he get to horse. 
Who will cry shame? Thou art not knight but 920 
knave. ^ 

Said Gareth, 'Damsel, whether knave or knight, 
Far liefer had I fight a score of times 
Then hear thee so missay me and revile. 
Fair words were best for him who fights for thee ; 
But truly foul are better, for they send 
That strength of anger thro' mine arms, I know 
That I shall overthrow him.' 

And he that bore 
The star, when mounted, cried from o 'er the bridge, 
'A kitchen-knave, and sent in scorn of me! 
Such fight not I, but answer scorn with scorn. 930 

For this were shame to do him further wrong 
Than set him on his feet, and take his horse 
And arms, and so return him to the King. 
Come, therefore, leave thy lady lightly, knave. 
Avoid : for it beseemeth not a knave 
To ride with such a lady.' 

'Dog, thou liest. 
I spring from loftier lineage than thine own.' 
He spake; and all at fiery speed the two 
Shock 'd on the central bridge, and either spear 
Bent but not brake, and either knight at once, 940 

Hurl'd as a stone from out of a catapult 
Beyond his horse's crupper and the bridge. 
Fell, as if dead ; but quickly rose and drew, 
And Gareth lash'd so fiercely with his brand 
He drave his enemy backward do^vn the bridge, 
The damsel crying, 'Well-stricken, kitchen-knave!' 
Till Gareth 's shield was cloven; but one stroke 
Laid him that clove it grovelling on the ground. 



50 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

Then oritxi the fall'n. 'Take not my litV: 1 yield/ 
And Gareth. 'So this danisol ask it of mo 
Good — I aotvrii it easily as a irraee.' 
She reiideniniT. * Insolent seullion : I of thee ? 
I bound to tluH* for an>' favour ask'dl' 
*Then shall he die/ And Gareth there unlaeed 
His helmet as to slay him. but she shriek 'd, 
*Be not so hardy, seullion. as to slay 
One nobler than thyself/ VOamsel. thy eharge 
Is an aboundiuiT pleasure to me. Kniirht. 
Th^' life is thine at her eonnunnd. Arise 
And quiekly pass to Arthur's hall, and say 
His kitohen-knave hath sent thee. See thou crave 
His pardon for thy breaking of his laws, 
^lyself. Avhen I return, will plead for thee. 
Thy shield is mine — farewell; and. damsel, thou, 
Load, and I follow.' 

And fast away she tied. 
Then when he eanie upon her. spake. 'Methouixht, 
Knave, when I watch 'd thee strikinjr on the bridge 
The savour of thj' kitchen came upon me 
A little faintlier: but the wind hath changed: 
I scent it twenty-fold.' And then she sang, 
* *'0 morning star i^not that tall felon there 
"Whom thou by sorcery or unhappiness 
Or some device, hast foully overthnnvn), 
**0 morning star that smilest in the blue, 
O star, my morning dream hath proven true. 
Smile sweetly, thou! my love hath smiled on me/* 

*But thou begone, take counsel, and away, 
For hard by here is one that guards a ford — 
The second brother in their fool's parabh^ — 
Will pay thee all thy wages, and to boot. 
Care not for sliame: thou art not knight but knave/ 



GARETH AND LYNETTE ,51 

To whom Sir Oareth aivfwer'd l^ii(?hingly, 
*Parablfr<i! H^ar a pfirMft of the kriave. 
When I wa« kitchen-knave amontr the rest 
Yic.TCM wa« the hearth, and one of my cr>-niate» 
Own Vi a rou^h dr>j/, to whom he cast his c^jat, 
"Guard it," and there wa« none to me^Idle with it. 
And Hijch a c^'jat art thon, and thee the Kin^ 
Gave me to ^jard, and such a doj^ am I, 
To worry, and not to flee — and — knight or knave — 990 
The knave that doth thee service a« full knij/ht 
Th all a/» i/'^/>d, JufiUftdmii, sji any knight 
Toward thy Hiirter's freeing.' •^— 

*Ay, Sir Knave! 
Ay, knave, becaiwe thou strikefrt; as a knij^ht, 
Beintf but knave, I hate the^- all the more.' 

'Fair darmjel, you should worship me the more, 
That, being but knave, I throw thine enemies.' 

* Ay, ay,* she said, *but thou shalt meet thy match.' 

So when they touch 'd the second river-loop, 
Hu^e on a huj^e red horse, and all in mail ifXX) 

Burnish 'd to blinding, shone the Nrxjnday Sun 
Beyond a raginj^ shallow. As if the flower. 
That blows a globe of after arrowlets. 
Ten thoiii>and-fold had grown, flashed the fierce 

shield. 
All sun; and Gareth's eyes had flying blots 
Before them when he tum'd from watching him. 
He from beyond the roaring shallow roar'd, 
'What df>^:^t thou, brother, in my marches here?* 



HXj8. Brother. Gareth carries the shield of Morning- star, and 
is rnintaken by Noon-Sun. 



52 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

And she athwart the shallow shrill 'd again, 
'Here is a kitchen-knave from Arthur's hall 
Hath overthrown thy brother, and hath his arms.* 
* Ugh ! ' cried the Sun, and vizoring up a red 
And cipher face of rounded foolishness, 
Push'd horse across the foamings of the ford, 
"Whom Gareth met midstream: no room was there 
For lance or tourney-skill: four strokes they struck 
With sword, and these were mighty ; the new knight 
Had fear he might be shamed ; but as the Sun 
Heaved up a ponderous arm to strike the fifth, 
The hoof of his horse slipt in the stream, the stream 
Descended, and the Sun was wash'd away. 

Then Gareth laid his lance athwart the ford ; 
So drew him home ; but he that fought no more, 
As being all bone-batter 'd on the rock. 
Yielded ; and Gareth sent him to the King. 
' Myself when I return will plead for thee. ' 
'Lead, and I follow.' Quietly she led. 
*Hath not the good wind, damsel, changed again?' 
•-* ' Nay, not a point : nor art thou victor here. 
There lies a ridge of slate across the ford; 
His horse thereon stumbled — ay, for I saw it. 

* "O Sun" (not this strong fool whom thou, Sir 

Knave, 
Hast overthrown thro' mere unhappiness) , 
' ' O Sun, that wakenest all to bliss or pain, 
O moon, that layest all to sleep again, 
Shine sweetly: twice my love hath smiled on me." 

* What knowest thou of lovesong or of love ? 
Nay, nay, God wot, so thou wert nobly born. 
Thou hast a pleasant presence. Yea, perchance, — 



GARETH AND LYXETTE 53 

* ' ' O dewy flowers that open to the sun, 1040 
O dewy flowers that close when day is done, 

Blow sweetly : twice my love hath smiled on me. ' ' 

'What knowest thou of flowers, except, belike. 
To garnish meats with? hath not our good King 
Who lent me thee, the flower of kitchendom, 
A foolish love for flowers ? what stick ye round 
The pasty? wherewithal deck the boar's head? 
Flowers ? nay, the boar hath rosemaries and bay. 

* ''0 birds, that warble to the morning sky, 

O birds that warble as the day goes by, 1050 

Sing sweetly : twice my love hath smiled on me. ' ' 

'What knowest thou of birds, lark, mavis, merle, 
Linnet ? what dream ye when they utter forth 
May-music growing with the growing light, 
Their sweet sun-worship ? these be for the snare 
(So runs thy fancy), these be for the spit, 
Larding and basting. See thou have not now 
Larded thy last, except thou turn and fly. 
There stands the third fool of their allegor}'.' 

For there bej'ond a bridge of treble bow, 106O 

All in a rose-red from the west, and all 
Naked it seem'd, and glow*ing in the broad 
Deep-dimpled current underneath, the knight. 
That named himself the Star of Evening, stood. 

And Gareth, 'Wherefore waits the madman there 
Naked in open dayshine ? ' ' Nay, ' she cried, 
'Not naked, only wrapt in harden 'd skins _ ___ 

That fit him like his own ; and so ye cleave 
His armour off him, these will turn the blade.' 



54 IDYLLS OF THE IQNG 

Then the third brother shouted o 'er the bridge, 
' O brother-star, why shine ye here so low 1 
Thy ward is higher up : but have ye slain 
The damsel 's champion 1 ' and the damsel cried, 

'No star of thine, but shot from Arthur's heaven 
With all disaster unto thine and thee! 
For both thy younger brethren have gone down 
Before this youth ; and so wilt thou, Sir Star ; 
Art thou not old ? ' 

* Old, damsel, old and hard, 
Old, with the might and breath of twenty boys.' 
Said Gareth, 'Old, and over-bold in brag! 
But that same strength which threw the Morning 

Star 
Can throw the Evening.* 

Then that other blew 
A hard and deadly note upon the horn. 
' Approach and arm me ! ' With slow steps from out 
An old storm-beaten, russet, many-stain 'd 
Pavilion, forth a grizzled damsel came. 
And arm'd him in old arms, and brought a helm 
With but a drying evergreen for crest. 
And gave a shield whereon the Star of Even 
Half -tarnish 'd and half -bright, his emblem, shone. 
But when it glitter 'd o'er the saddle-bow, 
They madly hurl'd together on the bridge; 
And Gareth overthrew him, lighted, drew. 
There met him drawn, and overthrew him again, 
But up like fire he started : and as oft 
As Gareth brought him grovelling on his knees, 
So many a time he vaulted up again; 
Till Gareth panted hard, and his great heart, 



GARETH AND LYNETTE 55 

Foredooming all his trouble was in vain, 

Labour 'd within him, for he seem'd as one 1100 

That all in later, sadder age begins 

To war against ill uses of a life, 

But these from all his life arise, and cry, 

*Thou hast made us lords, and canst not put us 

down ! ' 
He half despairs; so Gareth seem'd to strike 
Vainly, the damsel clamouring all the while, 
'Well done, knave-knight, well stricken, 

good knight-knave — 
knave, as noble as any of all the knights — 
Shame me not, shame me not. I have prophesied — 
Strike, thou art worthy of the Table Round — 1110 

His arms are old, he trusts the harden 'd skin — 
Strike — strike — the wind will never change again.' 
And Gareth hearing ever stronglier smote, 
And hew'd great pieces of his armour off him, 
But lash'd in vain against the hardened skin, 
And could not wholly bring him under, more 
Than loud Southwesterns, rolling ridge on ridge. 
The buoy that rides at sea, and dips and springs 
For ever: till at length Sir Gareth 's brand 
Clash 'd his, and brake it utterly to the hilt. 1120 

'I have thee now;' but forth that other sprang. 
And, all unknightlike, writhed his wiry arms 
Around him, till he felt, despite his mail. 
Strangled, but straining ev'n his uttermost 
Cast, and so hurl'd him headlong o'er the bridge 
Down to the river, sink or swim, and cried, 
'Lead, and I follow.' 

But the damsel said, 
* I lead no longer ; ride thou at my side ; 
Thou art the kingliest of all kitchen-knaves. 



56 IDYLLS OF THE KIXG 

1130 ' "0 trefoil, sparkling on tlie rainy plain, 

rainbow with three colours after rain, 
Shine sweetly : thrice my love hath smiled on me. ' ' 

' Sir, — and, good faith, I fain had added — Knight, 
But that I heard thee call thyself a knave, — 
Shamed am I that I so rebuked, reviled, 
Missaid thee ; noble I am ; and thought the King 
Scorn 'd me and mine ; and now thy pardon, friend, 
For thou hast ever answer 'd courteously, 
And wholly bold thou art, and meek withal 
1140 As any of Arthur's best, but, being knave. 

Hast mazed my wit : I marvel what thou art. ' 

'Damsel,' he said, 'you be not all to blame, 
Saving that you mistrusted our good King 
Would handle scorn, or yield you, asking, one 
Not fit to cope your quest. You said your say ; 
Mine answer was my deed. Good sooth ! I hold 
He scarce is knight, yea but half-man, nor meet 
To fight for gentle damsel, he, who lets 
His heart be stirr'd with any foolish heat 
1150 At any gentle damsel's waywardness. 

Shamed ! care not ! thy foul sayings fought for me : 
And seeing now thy words are fair, methinks 
There rides no knight, not Lancelot, his great self, 
Hath force to quell me.' 

Nigh upon that hour 
When the lone hem forgets his melancholy. 
Lets down his other leg, and stretching, dreams 
Of goodly supper in the distant pool. 
Then turn'd the noble damsel smiling at him, 
And told him of a cavern hard at hand, 
1160 Where bread and baken meats and good red wine • 



GARETH AND LYXETTE 57 

Of Southland, which the Lady Lyonors 
Had sent her coming champion, waited him. 

Anon they past a narrow comb wherein 
Were slabs of rock with figures, knights on horse 
Sculptured, and deckt in slowly-waning hues. 
* Sir Knave, my knight, a hermit once was here, 
Whose holy hand hath fashion 'd on the rock 
The war of Time against the soul of man. ^^ 

Ajid yon four fools have suck'd their allegory 
From these damp Avails, and taken but the form. 1170 
Know 3'e not these?' and Gareth lookt and read — 
In letters like to those the vexillaiy 
Hath left crag-carven o'er the streaming Gelt — 
' Phosphorus, ' then * Mekidies, — ' Hesperus ' — 
'Xox' — '^loRs/ beneath five figures, armed men, 
Slab after slab, their faces forward all, 
And running down the Soul, a Shape that fled 
With broken wings, torn raiment and loose hair. 
For help and shelter to the hermit's cave. '" 

'Follow the faces, and we find it. Look, IISO 

Who comes behind!' 

For one — delay 'd at first -___ 
Thro' helping back the dislocated Kay 
To Camelot, then by what thereafter chanced, 
The damsel's headlong error thro' the wood — 
Sir Lancelot, having swum the river-loops — 
His blue shield-lions cover 'd — softlv drew 



1172. The letters are like tliose carved on a cliff near the 
river Grelt, in Cumberland, probably by a Roman standard-bearer. 

1174. Phosphorus: Morning-star. 
Meridies: Noonday. 
Hesperus: Evening-star. 

1175. Nox: Night. 
Mors: Death. 



58 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

Behind the twain, and when he saw the star 
Gleam, on Sir Gareth's turning to him, cried, 
' Stay, felon knight, I avenge me for my friend. ' 

1190 And Gareth crying prick 'd against the cry; 

But when they closed — in a moment — at one touch 
Of that skill'd spear, the wonder of the world — 
Went sliding down so easily, and fell, 
That when he found the grass within his hands 
He laugh 'd; the laughter jarr'd upon Lynette: 
^ Harshly she ask'd him, 'Shamed and overthrown, 

And tumbled back int6 the kitchen-knave. 
Why laugh ye ? that ye blew your boast in vain 1 * 
'Nay, noble damsel, but that I, the son 

1200 Of old King Lot and good Queen Bellicent, 

And victor of the bridges and the ford. 
And knight of Arthur, here lie thrown by whom 
I know not, all thro' mere unhappiness — 
Device and sorcery and unhappiness — 
Out, sword; we are thrown!' And Lancelot an- 
swer 'd 'Prince, 
Gareth — ^thro' the mere unhappiness 
Of one who came to help thee, not to harm, 
Lancelot, and all as glad to find thee whole. 
As on the day when Arthur knighted him. ' 

1210 Then Gareth, 'Thou — Lancelot! — thine the hand 

That threw me ? And some chance to mar the boast 
Thy brethren of thee make — which could not 

chance — 
Had sent thee down before a lesser spear, 
Shamed had I been, and sad — Lancelot — thou ! ' 

1187. star. Gareth still carries the shield of Morning-star. 
Cf. 1008. 

1190. prick'd: in the familiar Middle English sense, "rode 
hard." 



GAEETH AKD LYNETTE 59 

AVhereat the maiden, petulant, ^Lancelot, 
Why came ye not, when call'd? and wherefore now 
Come ye, not call 'd ? I gloried in my knave, 
Who being still rebuked, would answer still 
Courteous as any knight — but now, if knight, 
The marvel dies, and leaves me fool'd and tricked, 1220 
And only wondering wherefore play'd upon: 
And doubtful whether I and mine be scorn 'd. 
Where should be truth if not in Arthur's hall. 
In Arthur's presence? Knight, knave, prince and 

fool, 
I hate thee and for ever.' 

And Lancelot said, 

* Blessed be thou. Sir Gareth ! knight art thou 
To the King's best wish. damsel, be you wise 
To call him shamed, who is but overthrown ? 
Thrown have I been, nor once, but many a time. 
Victor from vanquish 'd issues at the last, 1230 
And overthrower from being overthrown. 

With sword we have not striven; and thy good 

horse 
And thou are weary ; yet not less I felt 
Thy manhood thro ' that wearied lance of thine. 
Well hast thou done ; for all the stream is freed. 
And thou hast wreak 'd his justice on his foes, 
And when reviled, hast answer 'd graciously, 
And makest merry when overthroAvn. Prince, 

Knight, 
Hail, Knight and Prince, and of our Table Round ! ' 

And then when turning to Lynette he told 1240 

The tale of Gareth, petulantly she said, 

* Ay well — ay well — for worse than being fool 'd 
Of others, is to fool one's self. A cave, 

Sir Lancelot, is hard by, with meats and drinks 



60 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

And forage for the horse, and flint for fire. 

But all about it flies a honeysuckle. 

Seek, till we find.' And when they sought and 

found, 
Sir Gareth drank and ate, and all his life 
Past into sleep ; on whom the maiden gazed. 

1250 'Sound sleep be thine! sound cause to sleep hast 

thou. 
Wake lusty ! Seem I not as tender to him 
As any mother 1 Ay, but such a one 
As all day long hath rated at her child, 
And vext his day, but blesses him asleep — 
Good lord, how sweetly smells the honeysuckle 
In the hush'd night, as if the world were one 
Of utter peace, and love, and gentleness! 
Lancelot, Lancelot' — and she clapt her hands — 
'Full merry am I to find my goodly knave 

1260 Is knight and noble. See now, sworn have I, 

Else yon black felon had not let me pass. 
To bring thee back to do the battle with him. 
Thus an thou goest, he will fight thee first ; 
Who doubts thee victor ? so will my knight-knave 
Miss the full flower of this accomplishment.' 

Said Lancelot, ' Peradventure he, you name, 
May know my shield. Let Gareth, an he will. 
Change his for mine, and take my charger, fresh, 
Not to be spurr'd, loving the battle as well 
1270 As he that rides him.' 'Lancelot-like,' she said, 

'Courteous in this, Lord Lancelot, as in all.' 

And Gareth, wakening, fiercely clutch 'd the 
shield; 
'Ramp ye lance-splintering lions, on whom all spears 
Are rotten sticks ! ye seem agape to roar I 



GAKETH AHD LYNETTE 61 

Yea, ramp and roar at leaving of your lord ! — 
Care not, good beasts, so well I care for you. 

noble Lancelot, from my hold on these 
Streams virtue — fire — thro' one that will not shame 
Even the shadow of Lancelot under shield. 
Hence: let ils go.' 

Silent the silent field 1280 
They traversed. Arthur's harp tho' summer-wan, 
In counter motion to the clouds, allured 
The glance of Gareth dreaming on his liege. 
A star shot: 'Lo,' said Gareth, 'the foe falls!' 
An owl whoopt : * Hark the victor pealing there ! * 
Suddenly she that rode upon his left 
Clung to the shield that Lancelot lent him, crying, 
'Yield, yield him this again: 'tis he must fight: 

1 curse the tongue that all thro' yesterday 

Reviled thee, and hath wrought on Lancelot now 1290 
To lend thee horse and shield: wonders ye have 

done; 
Miracles ye cannot: here is glory enow 
In- having flung the three: I see thee maim'd. 
Mangled: I swear thou canst not fling the fourth.' 

*And wherefore, damsel? tell me all ye know. 
You cannot scare me; nor rough face, or voice, 
Brute bulk of limb, or boundless savagery 
Appall me from the quest.' 

'Nay, Prince,' she cried, 
'God wot, I never look'd upon the face. 
Seeing he never rides abroad by day ; 130C 

But watch 'd him have I like a phantom pass 
Chilling the night : nor have I heard the voice. 
Always he made his mouthpiece of a page 
4 



62 IDYLLS OF THE KTSG 

Who came and went, and still reported him 
As closing in himself the strength of ten, 
And when his anger tare him, massacring 
Man. woman, lad and girl — yea. the soft babe! 
Some hold that he hath swallow 'd infant flesh. 
Monster I Prince. I went for Lancelot first. 
The quest is Lancelot's: give him back the shield.' 

Said Gareth langhing. 'An he fight for this, 
Belike he wins it as the better man : 
Thus — and not else I' 

But Lancelot on him urged 
All the devisings of their chivalry 
When one might meet a mightier than himself: 
How best to manage horse, lance, sword and shield, 
And so fill up the gap where force might fail. 
"With skill and fineness. Instant were his words. 

Then Gareth, ' Here be rules. I know but one — 
To dash against mine enemy and to win. 
Yet have I watch 'd thee victor in the joust, 
And seen thy way.' 'Heaven help thee,' sigh'd 
Lynette. 

Then for a space, and under cloud that grew 
To thunder-gloom palling all stars, they rode 
In converse tiU she made her palfrey halt. 
Lifted an arm, and softly whisper 'd, 'There.' 
And all the three were silent seeing, pitch 'd 
Beside the Castle Perilous on flat field, 
A huge pavilion like a mountain peak 



1318. Instant: in ita direct meaning, "standing firm on" — 
i. e., urgent. 



GAEETH AXD LYXETTE 63 

Sunder the glooming crimson on the marge. 133< 

Black, with black banner, and a long black horn 

Beside it hanging; which Sir Gareth graspt, 

And so, before the two could hinder him. 

Sent all his heart zmd breath thro' all the horn. 

Echo'd the walls: a light twinkled: anon 

Came lights and lights, and once again he blew; 

Whereon were hollow tramplings up and down 

And muffled voices heard, and shadows past: 

Till high above him, circled with her maids, 

The Lady Lyonors at a window stood, 1.^ 

Beautiful among lights, and waving to him 

White hands, and courtesy I but when the Prince 

Three times had blown — after long hush — at last — 

The huge pavilion slowly yielded up. 

Thro' those black foldings, that which housed 

therein. 
High on a nightblack horse, in nightblack arms, 
TVith white breast-bone, and barren ribs of Death, 
And crown 'd with fleshless laughter — some ten 

steps — 
In the half-light — thro' the dim dawn — advanced 
The monster, and then paused, and spake no word. 135( 

But Gareth spake and all indignantly. 
'Fool, for thou hast, men say. the strength of ten, 
Canst thou not trust the limbs thy God hath given, 
But must, to make the terror of thee more. 
Trick thyself out in ghastly imageries 
Of that which Life hath done with, and the clod. 
Less dull than thou, will hide with mantling flowers 
As if for pitj' ? ' But he spake no word : 
Which set the horror higher: a maiden swoon 'd: 



1348. fleshless laughter: a grinning skull. 



64 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

The Lady Lyonors wrung her hands and wept, 
As doom'd to be the bride of Night and Death; 
Sir Gareth's head prickled beneath his helm; 
And ev^n Sir Lancelot thro' his warm blood felt 
Ice strike, and all that mark'd him were aghast. 

At once Sir Lancelot's charger fiercely neigh 'd, 
And Death's dark war-horse bounded forward with 

him. 
Then those that did not blink the terror, saw 
That Death was cast to ground, and slowly rose. 
But with one stroke Sir Gareth split the skull. 
Half fell to right and half to left and lay. 
Then with a stronger buffet he clove the helm 
As throughly as the skull; and out from this 
Issued the bright face of a blooming boy 
Fresh as a flower new-born, and crying, 'Knight, 
Slay me not : my three brethren bade me do it, 
To make a horror all about the house. 
And stay the world from Lady Lyonors. 
They never dream 'd the passes would be past.* 
Answer 'd Sir Gareth graciously to one 
Not many a moon his younger, 'My fair child, 
What madness made thee challenge the chief knight 
Of Arthur's hall?' 'Fair Sir, they bade me do it. 
They hate the King, and Lancelot, the King's 

friend. 
They hoped to slay him somewhere on the stream, 
They never dream 'd the passes could be past.' 

Then sprang the happier day from underground; 
And Lady Lyonors and her house, with dance 
And revel and song, made merry over Death, 
As being after all their foolish fears 



GARETH AND LYNETTE 65 

And horrors only proven a blooming boy. 131 

So large mirth lived and Gareth won the quest. 

And he that told the tale in older times 
Says that Sir Gareth wedded Lyonors, 
But he, that told it later, says Lynette. ^^ 



1392. he: Malory. 
1394, he: Tennyson. 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE 

Elaine the fair, Elaine the lovable, 

Elaine, the lily maid of Astolat, 

High in her chamber up a tower to the east 

Guarded the sacred shield of Lancelot ; 

Which first she placed where morning's earliest ray 

Might strike it, and awake her with the gleam ; 

Then fearing rust or soilure fashion 'd for it 

A case of silk, and braided thereupon 

All the devices blazon 'd on the shield 

10 In their own tinct, and added, of her wit, 

A border fantasy of branch and flower. 
And yellow-throated nestling in the nest. 
Nor rested thus content, but day by day, 
Leaving her household and good father, climb 'd 
That eastern tower, and entering barr'd her door, 
Stript off the case, and read the naked shield, 
Now guess 'd a hidden meaning in his arms. 
Now made a pretty history to herself 
Of every Idint a sword had beaten in it, 

20 And every scratch a lance had made upon it. 

Conjecturing when and where : this cut is fresh ; 
That ten years back; this dealt him at Caerlyle; 
That at Caerleon; this at Camelot: 
And ah God's mercy, what a stroke was there! 
And here a thrust that might have kill'd, but God 
Broke the strong lance, and roll'd his enemy down, 
And saved him : so she lived in fantasy. 
66 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE 67 

How came the lily maid by that good shield 
Of Lancelot, she that knew not ev'n his name? 
He left it with her, when he rode to tilt 30 

For the great diamond in the diamond jousts, 
Which Arthur had ordain 'd, and by that name 
Had named them, since a diamond was the prize. 

For Arthur, long before they crown 'd him King,^,^ 
Roving the trackless realms of Lyonesse, 
Had found a glen, gray boulder and black tarn. 
A horror lived about the tarn, and clave 
Like its own mists to all the mountain side: 
For here two brothers, one a king, had met 
And fought together ; but their names were lost ; 40 
And each had slain his brother at a blow; 
And down they fell and made the glen abhorr 'd : 
And there they lay till all their bones were bleach 'd, 
And lichen 'd into colour with the crags : 
And he, that once was king, had on a crown 
Of diamonds, one in front, and four aside. 
And Arthur came, and labouring up the pass, 
All in a misty moonshine, unawares 
Had trgdden that crown 'd skeleton, and the skull 
Brake from the nape, and from the skull the crown 50 
Roll'd into light, and turning on its rims 
Fled like a glittering rivulet to the tarn : 
And down the shingly scaur he plunged, and caught, 
And set it on his head, and in his heart 
Heard murmurs, 'Lo, thou likewise shalt be King.' 

Thereafter, when a King, he had the gems 
Pluck 'd from the crown, and show'd them to his 

knights. 
Saying, 'These jewels, whereupon I chanced 
Divinely, are the kingdom's, not the King's — 



68 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

60 For public use : henceforward let there be, 

Once every year, a joust for one of these : 
For so by nine years' proof we needs must learn 
Which is our mightiest, and ourselves shall grow 
In use of arms and manhood, till we drive 
The heathen, who, some say, shall rule the land 
Hereafter, which God hinder. ' Thus he spoke : 
And eight years past, eight jousts had been, and 

still 
Had Lancelot won the diamond of the year. 
With purpose to present them to the Queen, 

70 When all were won ; but meaning all at once 

To snare her royal fancy with a boon 
Worth half her realm, had never spoken word. 

Now for the central diamond and the last 
And largest, Arthur, holding then his court 
Hard on the river nigh the place which now 
Is this world's hugest, let proclaim a joust 
At Camelot, and when the time drew nigh 
Spake (for she had been sick) to Guinevere, 
'Are you so sick, my Queen, you cannot move 
80 To these fair jousts T 'Yea, lord,' she said, 'ye 

know it.' 
'Then will ye miss,' he answer 'd, 'the great deeds 
Of Lancelot, and his prowess in the lists, 
A sight ye love to look on.' And the Queen 
Lifted her eyes, and they dwelt languidly 
On Lancelot, where he stood beside the King. 
He thinking that he read her meaning there, 
' Stay with me, I am sick ; my love is more 
Than many diamonds, ' yielded ; and a heart 
Love-loyal to the least wish of the Queen 



76. this world's hugest: London. 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE 69 

(However much he yearn xl to make complete 90 

The tale of diamonds for his destined boon) 
Urged him to speak against the truth, and say, 
*Sir King, mine ancient wound is hardly whole, 
And lets me from the saddle;' and the King 
Glanced first at him, then her, and went his way. 
No sooner gone than suddenly she began : 

* To blame, my lord Sir Lancelot, much to blame ! 
Why go ye not to these fair jousts ? the knights 
Are half of them our enemies, and the crowd 
Will murmur, ''Lo the shameless ones, who take 100 
Their pastime now tlie trustful King is gone ! " ' 
Then Lancelot vext at having lied in vain : 
*Are ye so w^ise? ye were not once so wise. 
My Queen, that summer, when ye loved me first. 
Then of the crowd ye took no more account 
Than of the myriad cricket of the mead. 
When its own voice clings to each blade of grass. 
And every voice is nothing. As to knights, 
Them surely can I silence with all ease. 
But now my loyal worship is allow 'd 110 

Of all men : many a bard, without offence, 
Has link'd our names together in his lay, 
Lancelot, the flower of bravery, Guinevere, 
The pearl of beauty : and our knights at feast 
Have pledged us in this union, while the King 
Would listen smiling. How then? is there more? 
Has Arthur spoken aught? or would yourself, 
Now weary of my service and devoir. 
Henceforth be truer to your faultless lord ? ' 

She broke into a little scornful laugh: 120 

* Arthur, my lord, Arthur, the faultless King, 
That passionate perfection, my good lord — 



70 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

But who can gaze upon the Sun in heaven? 

He never spake word of reproach to me, 

He never had a glimpse of mine untruth, 

He cares not for me : only here to-day 

There gleam 'd a vague suspicion in his eyes: 

Some meddling rogue has tamper 'd with him — else 

Rapt in this fancy of his Table Round, 

And swearing men to vows impossible. 

To make them like himself : but, friend, to me 

He is all fault who hath no fault at all : 

For who loves me must have a touch of earth ; 

The low sun makes the colour: I am yours, 

Not Arthur's, as ye know, save by the bond. 

And therefore hear my words: go to the jousts: 

The tiLy-trumpeting gnat can break our dream 

When sweetest; and the vermin voices here 

May buzz so loud — ^we scorn them, but they sting.' 

Then answer 'd Lancelot, the chief of knights: 
*And with what face, after my pretext made, 
Shall I appear, Queen, at Camelot, I 
Before a King who honours his own word. 
As if it were his God's?' 

*Yea,' said the Queen, 
*A moral child without the craft to rule, 
Else had he not lost me : but listen to me, 
If I must find you wit : we hear it said 
That men go down before your spear at a touch, 
But knowing you are Lancelot; your great name. 
This conquers: hide it therefore; go unknown: 
Win ! by this kiss you will : and our true King 
Will then allow your pretext, O my knight, 
As all for glory; for to speak him true, 
Ye know right well, how meek soe'er he seem, 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE 71 

No keener hunter after glory breathes. 

He loves it in his knights more than himself: 

They prove to him his work : win and return. ' 

Then got Sir Lancelot suddenly to horse, 
Wroth at himself. Not 'wdlling to be known, 
He left the barren-beaten thoroughfare, 160 

Chose the green path that sliow'd the rarer foot, 
And there among the solitary downs, 
Full often lost in fancy, lost his way; 
Till as he traced a f aintly-shadow 'd track, 
That all in loops and links among the dales 
Kan to the Castle of Astolat, he saw 
Fired from the west, far on a hill, the towers. 
Thither he made, and blew the gateway horn. 
Then came an old, dumb, myriad-wrinkled man, 
AVho let him into lodging and disarmed. 170 

And Lancelot marvell'd at the wordless man; 
And issuing found the Lord of Astolat 
With tw^o strong sons. Sir Torre and Sir Lavaine, 
]\Ioving to meet him in the castle court; 
And close behind them stept the lily maid 
Elaine, his daughter: mother of the house 
There was not : some light jest among them rose 
With laughter dying down as the great knight 
Approach 'd them : then the Lord of Astolat : 
'Whence comest thou, my guest, and b}^ what name 180 
Livest between the lips? for by thy state 
And presence I might guess thee chief of those, 
After the King, who eat in Arthur 's halls. 
Him have I seen : the rest, his Table Round, 
Known as they are, to me they are unknown.* 

Then answer 'd Lancelot, the chief of knights: 
'Known am I, and of Arthur's hall, and known, 
What I by mere mischance have brought, my shield. 



72 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

But since I go to joust as one unknown 
At Camelot for the diamond, ask me not, 
Hereafter ye shall know me — and the shield — 
I pray you lend me one, if such you have, 
Blank, or at least with some device not mine.' 

Then said the Lord of Astolat, 'Here is Torre's 
Hurt in his first tilt was my son. Sir Torre. 
And so, God wot, his shield is blank enough. 
His ye can have.' Then added plain Sir Torre, 
'Yea, since I cannot use it, ye may have it.' 
Here laugh 'd the father saying, 'Fie, Sir Churl, 
Is that an answer for a noble knight? 
Allow him ! but Lavaine, my younger here. 
He is so full of lustihood, he will ride. 
Joust for it, and win, and bring it in an hour, 
And set it in this damsel's golden hair. 
To make her thrice as wilful as before.' 

'Nay, father, nay, good father, shame me not 
Before this noble knight,' said young Lavaine, 
' For nothing. Surely I but play 'd on Torre : 
He seem'd so sullen, vext he could not go: 
A jest, no more ! for, knight, the maiden dreamt 
That some one put this diamond in her hand. 
And that it was too slippery to be held. 
And slipt and fell into some pool or stream. 
The castle-well, belike; and then I said 
That if I went and // I fought and won it 
(But all was jest and joke among ourselves) 
Then must she keep it safelier. All was jest. 
But, father, give me leave, an if he will, 
To ride to Camelot with this noble knight: 
Win shall I not, but do my best to win: 
Young as I am, yet would I do my best,' 



LANCELOT AND ELAIXE 73 

*So ye will grace me,' answer 'd Lancelot, 
Smiling a moment, Svith your fellowship 
O'er these waste downs whereon I lost myself. 
Then were I glad of j'ou as guide and friend : 
And you shall win this diamond, — as I hear 
It is a fair large diamond, — if ye may, 
And yield it to this maiden, if ye will. ' 
*A fair large diamond,' added plain Sir Torre, 
*Such be for queens, and not for simple maids.' 230 
Then she, who held her eyes upon the ground, 
Elaine, and heard her name so tost about, 
FlUiSh'd slightly at the slight disparagement 
Before the stranger knight, who, looking at her, 
Full courtly, yet not falsely, thus return 'd: 
*If what is fair be but for what is fair, 
And onl}^ queens are to be counted so. 
Rash were my judgment then, who deem this maid 
Might wear as fair a jewel as is on earth, 
Not violating the bond of like to like.' 240 

He spoke and ceased: the lily maid Elaine, 
Won by the mellow voice before she look'd. 
Lifted her eyes, and read his lineaments. 
The great and guilty love he bare the Queen, 
In battle with the love he bare his lord. 
Had marr 'd his face, and mark 'd it ere his tinae. 
Another sinning on such heights with one, 
The flower of all the west and all the world. 
Had been the sleeker for it : but in him 
His mood was often like a fiend, and rose 250 

And drove him into wastes and solitudes 
For agony, who was yet a living soul. 
Marr'd as he was, he seem'd the goodliest man 
That ever among ladies ate in hall, 
And noblest, when she lifted up her eyes. 



74 IDYLLS OP THE KING 

However marr'd, of more than twice her years, 
Seam'd with an ancient swordcut on the cheek, 
And bruised and bronzed, she lifted up her eyes 
And loved him, with that love which was her doom. 

260 Then the great knight, the darling of the court, 

Loved of the loveliest, into that rude hall 
Stept with all grace, and not with half disdain 
Hid under grace, as in a smaller time, 
But kindly man moving among his kind : 
Whom they with meats and vintage of their best 
And talk and minstrel melody entertain 'd. 
And much they ask'd of court and Table Round, 
And ever well and readily answer 'd he: 
But Lancelot, when they glanced at Guinevere, 

270 Suddenly speaking of the wordless man. 

Heard from the Baron that, ten years before, 
The heathen caught and reft him of his tongue. 
*He learnt and warn'd me of their fierce design 
Against my house, and him they caught and maim 'd ; 
But I, my sons, and little daughter fled 
From bonds or death, and dwelt among the woods 
By the great river in a boatman's hut. 
Dull days were those, till our good Arthur broke 
— ^-^ The Pagan yet once more on Badon hill. ' 

280 ' O there, great lord, doubtless, ' Lavaine said, rapt 

By all the sweet and sudden passion of youth 
Toward greatness in its elder, 'you have fought. 
O tell us — for we live apart — you know 
Of Arthur 's glorious wars. ' And Lancelot spoke 
And answer 'd him at full, as having been 



269. glanced at: referred to. 

270. suddenly speaking: i. e., changing the subject. 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE 75 

With Arthur in the fight which all day long 

Rang by the white mouth of the violent Glem; 

And in the four loud battles by the shore 

Of Duglas ; that on Bassa ; then the war 

That thunder 'd in and out the gloomy skirts 290 

Of Celidon the forest; and again .^^^ 

By castle Gurnion, where the glorious King 

Had on his cuirass worn our Lady's Head, 

Carv'd of one emerald centr'd in a sun 

Of silver rays, that lighten 'd as he breathed; 

And at Caerleon had he help'd his lord. 

When the strong neighings of the wild white 

Horse 
Set every gilded parapet shuddering ; 
And up in Agned-Cathregonion too. 
And down the waste sand-shores of Trath Treroit, 'M 
Where many a heathen fell ; ' and on the mount 
Of Badon I myself beheld the King 
Charge at the head of all his Table Round, 
And all his legions crying Christ and him. 
And break them ; and I saw him, after, stand 
High on a heap of slain, from spur to plume 
Red as the rising sun with heathen blood. 
And seeing me, with a great voice he cried, 
' * They are broken, they are broken ! ' ' for the King, 
However mild he seems at home, nor cares 310 

For triumph in our mimic wars, the jousts — 
For if his own knight cast him down, he laughs 
Saying, his knights are better men than he — 



297. wild white Horse: The banner of the Saxons bore the 
figure of a white horse; that of the Britons, the figure of a 
dragon. 

304. Christ and him: i. e., their battle cry was "Christ and 
Arthur ! " 



76 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

Yet in this heathen war the fire of God 
Fills him : I never saw his like : there lives 
No greater leader.' 

While he utter 'd this, 
Low to her own heart said the lily maid, 
'Save your great self, fair lord;' and when he fell 
From talk of war to traits of pleasantry — 
Being mirthful he, but in a stately kind — 
She still took note that when the living smile 
Died from his lips, across him came a cloud 
Of melancholy severe, from which again, 
Whenever in her hovering to and fro 
The lily maid had striven to make him cheer, 
There brake a sudden-beaming tenderness 
Of manners and of nature: and she thought 
That all was nature, all, perchance, for her. 
And all night long his face before her lived, 
As when a painter, poring on a face, 
Divinely thro' all hindrance finds the man 
Behind it, and so paints him that his face. 
The shape and colour of a mind and life, 
Lives for his children, ever at its best 
And fullest ; so the face before her lived, 
Dark-splendid, speaking in the silence, full 
Of noble things, and held her from her sleep. 
Till rathe she rose, half -cheated in the thought 
She needs must bid farewell to sweet Lavaine. 
First as in fear, step after step, she stole 
Down the long tower-stairs, hesitating: 
Anon, she heard Sir Lancelot cry in the court, 
' This shield, my friend, where is it ? ' and Lavaine 
Past inward, as she came from out the tower. 



338. rathe: early. 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE 77 

There to his proud horse Lancelot turn'd, and 

smooth 'd 
The glossy shoulder, humming to himself. 
Half-en-\dous of the flattering hand, she drew 
Nearer and stood. He look'd, and more amazed 
Than if seven men had set upon him, saw 
The maiden standing in the dewy light. 350 

He had not dream 'd she was so beautiful. 
Then came on him a sort of sacred fear. 
For silent, tho' he greeted her, she stood 
Rapt on his face as if it were a God's. 
Suddenly flash 'd on her a wild desire, 
That he should wear her favour at the tilt. 
She braved a riotous heart in asking for it. 
'Fair lord, whose name I know not — noble it is, 
I well believe, the noblest — will you wear 
]\Iy favour at this tourney ? ' * Nay, ' said he, 3bu 

'Fair ladv, since I never vet have worn 
Favour of any lady in the lists. 
Such is my wont, as those, who know me, know. ' 
'Yea, so,' she answer 'd; 'then in wearing mine 
Needs must be lesser likelihood, noble lord. 
That those who know should know 3'ou.' And he 

turn 'd 
Her counsel up and down within his mind. 
And found it true, and answer 'd, 'True, my child. 
Well, I will wear it : fetch it out to me : 
What is it ? ' and she told him ' A red sleeve 370 

Broider'd with pearls,' and brought it: then he 

bound 
Her token on his helmet, with a smile 
Saying, 'I never yet have done so much 
For any maiden living, ' and the blood 
Sprang to her face and fill'd her with delight; 
But left her all the paler, when Lavaine 



78 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

Returning brought the yet-unblazon 'd shield, 
His brother's; which he gave to Lancelot, 
Who parted with his own to fair Elaine : 

380 'Do me this grace, my child, to have my shield 

In keeping till I come.' *A grace to me,' 
She answer 'd, ' twice to-day. I am your squire ! ' 
Whereat Lavaine said, laughing, 'Lily maid, 
For fear our people call you lily maid 
In earnest, let me bring your colour back; 
Once, twice, and thrice: now get you hence to bed:'" 
So kiss'd her, and Sir Lancelot his own hand. 
And thus they moved away : she stay 'd a minute, 
Then made a sudden step to the gate, and there — 

390 Her bright hair blown about the serious face 

Yet rosy-kindled with her brother's kiss — 
Paused by the gateway, standing near the shield 
In silence, while she watch 'd their arms far-off 
Sparkle, until they dipt below the downs. 
Then to her tower she climb 'd, and took the shield, 
There kept it, and so lived in fantasy. 

Meanwhile the new companions past away 
Far o'er the long backs of the bushless downs. 
To where Sir Lancelot knew there lived a knight 

400 Not far from Camelot, now for forty years 

A hermit, who had pray'd, labour 'd and pray'd, 
And ever labouring had scoop 'd himself 
In the white rock a chapel and a haU 
On massive columns, like a shorecliff cave, 
And cells and chambers: all were fair and dry; 
The green light from the meadows underneath 
Struck up and lived along the milky roofs ; 
And in the meadows tremulous aspen-trees 
And poplars made a noise of falling showers. 

410 And thither wending there that night they bode. 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE 79 

But when the next day broke from underground, 
And shot red fire and shadows thro' the cave, 
They rose,' heard mass, broke fast, and rode away: 
Then Lancelot saying, ^ Hear, but hold my name 
Hidden, you ride with Lancelot of the Lake.' 
Abash 'd Lavaine, whose instant reverence. 
Dearer to true young hearts than their own praise. 
But left him leave to stammer, *Is it indeed?' 
And after muttering 'The great Lancelot,' 
At last he got his breath and answer 'd, 'One, 
One have I seen — that other, our liege lord. 
The dread Pendragon, Britain's King of kings, 
Of whom the people talk mysteriously. 
He will be there — then were I stricken blind 
That minute, I might say that I had seen. ' 



So spake Lavaine, and when they reach 'd the 
lists 
By Camelot in the meadow, let his eyes 
Run thro ' the peopled gallery which half round 
Lay like a rainbow fall 'n upon the grass. 
Until they found the clear-faced King, who sat 
Eobed in red samite, easily to be known. 
Since to his crown the golden dragon clung, 
And down his robe the dragon writhed in gold. 
And from the carven-work behind him crept 
Two dragons gilded, sloping down to make 
Arms for his chair, w^hile all the rest of them 
Thro' knots and loops and folds innumerable 
Fled ever thro' the woodwork, till they found 
The new design wherein they lost themselves, 
Yet with all ease, so tender was the work: 



423. mysteriously: referring to the stories of Arthur's birth 
and death. 



80 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

And, in the costly canopy o'er him set, 
Blazed the last diamond of the nameless king. 

Then Lancelot answer 'd young Lavaine and said, 
* Me yon call great : mine is the firmer seat, 
The truer lance : but there is many a youth 
Now crescent, who will come to all I am 
And overcome it; and in me there dwells 
No greatness, save it be some far-off touch 
Of greatness to know well I am not great : 

450 There is the man.' And Lavaine gaped upon him 

As on a thing miraculous, and anon 
The trumpets blew; and then did either side, 
They that assail 'd, and they that held the lists, 
Set lance in rest, strike spur, suddenly move, 
Meet in the midst, and there so furiously 
Shock, that a man far-off might well perceive, 
If any man that day were left afield. 
The hard earth shake, and a low thunder of arms. 
And Lancelot bode a little, till he saw 

460 Which were the weaker ; then he hurl 'd into it 

Against the stronger: little need to speak 
Of Lancelot in his glory ! King, duke, earl. 
Count, baron — whom he smote, he overthrew. 

But in the field were Lancelot's kith and kin, 
Ranged with the Table Round that held the lists, 
Strong men, and wrathful that a stranger knight 
Should do and almost overdo the deeds 
Of Lancelot ; and one said to the other, ' Lo ! 
What is he ? I do not mean the force alone — 
470 The grace and versatility of the man! 



442. nameless king. Cf. 39-56. 
450. the man: Arthur. 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE 81 

Is it not Lancelot 1' *When has Lancelot worn 

Favour of any lady in the lists? 

Not such his wont, as we, that know him, know.' 

' How then ? who then ? ' a fury seized them all, 

A fiery family passion for the name 

Of Lancelot, and a glory one with theirs. 

They couch 'd their spears and prick 'd their steeds, 

and thus, 
Their plumes driv'n backward by the wind they 

made 
In moving, all together down upon him 
Bare, as a wild wave in the wide North sea, 480 

Green-glimmering toward the summit, bears, with 

all 
Its stormy crests that smoke against the skies, 
Down on a bark, and overbears the bark. 
And him that helms it, so they overbore 
Sir Lancelot and his charger, and a spear • 
Down-glancing lamed the charger, and a spear 
Prick 'd sharply his own cuirass, and the head 
Pierced thro' his side, and there snapt, and re- 
mained. 

Then Sir Lavaine did well and worshipf ully ; 
He bore a knight of old repute to the earth, 490 

And brought his horse to Lancelot where he lay. 
He up the side, sweating with agony, got. 
But thought to do while he might yet endure, 
And being lustily holpen by the rest, 
His party, — tho' it seein'd half -miracle 
To those he fought with, — drave his kith and kin, 
And all the Table Round that held the lists. 
Back to the barrier; then the trumpets blew 
Proclaiming his the prize, who wore the sleeve 
Of scarlet, and the pearls ; and all the knights, 500 



82 IDYLLS OF THE KIXG 

His party, cried, 'Advance and take thy prize 
The diamond; ' but he answer 'd, ' Diamond me 
No diamonds! for God's love, a little air! 
Prize me no prizes, for my prize is death ! 
Hence will I, and I charge you, follow me not.' 

He spoke, and vanished suddenly from the field 
With young Lavaine into the poplar grove. 
There from his charger do^^^l he slid, and sat, 
Gasping to Sir Lavaine, 'Draw the lance-head:' 

510 'Ah my sweet lord Sir Lancelot,' said Lavaine 

'I dread me, if I draw it, you will die.' 
But he, 'I die already with it: draw — 
Draw,' — and Lavaine drew, and Sir Lancelot gave 
A marvellous great shriek and ghastly groan. 
And half his blood burst forth, and do-wTi he sank 
For the pure pain, and wholly swoon 'd away. 
Then came the hermit out and bare him in. 
There stanch 'd his wound; and there, in daily 

doubt 
Whether to live or die, for many a week 

520 Hid from the wide world 's rumour by the grove 

Of poplars with their noise of falling showers, 
And ever-tremulous aspen-trees, he lay. 

But on that day when Lancelot fled the lists. 
His party, knights of utmost North and West, 
Lords of waste marches, kings of desolate isles. 
Came round their great Pendragon, saying to him, 
'Lo, Sire, our knight, thro' whom we won the day. 
Hath gone sore wounded, and hath left his prize 
Untaken, crvang that his prize is death.' 
530 'Heaven hinder,' said the King, 'that such an one, 

So great a knight as we have seen to-day — 
He seem'd to me another Lancelot — 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE 83 

Yea, twenty times I thought him Lancelot — 
He must not pass uneared for. Wherefore, rise, 

Gawain, and ride forth and find the knight. 
Wounded and wearied needs must he be near. 

1 charge that you get at once to horse. 

And, knights and kings, there breathes not one of 

you 
Will deem this prize of oui^ is rashly given: 
His prowess was too wondrous. We will do him 540 
No customary honour: since the knight 
Came not to us, of us to claim the prize. 
Ourselves will send it after. Rise and take 
This diamond, and deliver it, and return, 
And bring us where he is, and how he fares, ' 
And cease not from your quest until ye find.' 

So saying, from the carven flower above, 
To which it made a restless heart, he took, 
And gave, the diamond : then from where he sat 
At Arthur's right, with smiling face arose, 550 

With smiling face and frowning heart, a Prince 
In the mid might and flourish of his May, 
Gawain, surnamed The Courteous, fair and strong, 
And after Lancelot, Tristram, and Geraint 
And Gareth, a good knight, but therewithal 
Sir Modred's brother, and the child of Lot, 
Nor often loyal to his word, and now 
Wroth that the King's command to sally forth 
In quest of whom he knew not, made him leave 
The banquet, and concourse of knights and kings. 560 



545. And bring us where he is: bring us (tidings of) where 
he is, etc. 

555. a good knight: in apposition with Gaicain, two lines 
before. 



84 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

So all in wrath he got to horse and went; 
While Arthur to the banquet, dark in mood, 
Past, thinking, 'Is it Lancelot who hath come 
Despite the wound he spake of, all for gain 
Of glory, and hath added wound to wound, 
And ridd'n away to die?' So fear'd the King, 
And, after two days' tarriance there, return 'd. 
Then when he saw the Queen, embracing ask'd, 
'Love, are you yet so sickT 'Nay, lord,' she said. 

570 'And where is Lancelot ^ Then the Queen amazed, 

'Was he not with you? won he not your prize?' 
'Nay, but one like him.' 'Why that like was he.* 
And when the King demanded how she knew, 
Said, 'Lord, no sooner had ye parted from us, 
\^_ Than Lancelot told me of a common talk 

That men went down before his spear at a touch. 
But knowing he was Lancelot ; his great name 
Conquer'd; and therefore would he hide his name 
From all men, ev'n the King, and to this end 

680 Had made the pretext of a hindering wound. 

That he might joust unknown of all, and learn 
If his old prowess were in aught decay 'd; 
And added, ' ' Our true Arthur, when he learns 
Will well allow my pretext, as for gain 
Of purer glory." ' 

Then replied the King : 
*Far lovelier in our Lancelot had it been. 
In lieu of idly dallying with the truth. 
To have trusted me as he hath trusted thee. 
Surely his King and most familiaxu4riend 
590 Might well have kept his secret./ True, indeed, 

Albeit I know my knights fantastical. 
So fine a fear in our large Lancelot 
Must needs have moved my laughter: now remains 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE 85 

But little cause for laughter : his own kin — 

111 news, my Queen, for all who love him, this ! — 

His kith and kin, not knowing, set upon him; 

So that he went sore wounded from the field: 

Yet good news too : for goodly hopes are mine 

That Lancelot is no more a lonely heart. 

He w^ore, against his wont, upon his helm 600 

A sleeve of scarlet, broider'd with great pearls, 

Some gentle maiden's gift.' 

* Yea, lord, ' she said, 
*Thy hopes are mine,' and saying that, she choked, 
And sharply turn'd about to hide her face, 
Past to her chamber, and there flung herself 
Down on the great King's couch, and writhed upon 

it, 
And clench 'd her fingers till they bit the palm, 
And shriek 'd out 'Traitor' to the unhearing wall. 
Then flash 'd into wild tears, and rose again. 
And moved about her palace, proud and pale. 610 

Gawain the while thro' all the region round 
Rode Avith his diamond, wearied of the quest. 
Touch 'd at all points, except the poplar grove, 
And came at last, tho' late, to Astolat: 
Whom glittering in enamell'd arms the maid 
Glanced at, and cried, 'What news from Camelot, 

lord? 
What of the knight with the red sleeve ? ' 'He won. ' 
*I knew it,' she said. 'But parted from the jousts 
Hurt in the side,' whereat she caught her breath; 
Thro' her own side she felt the sharp lance go; 620 
Thereon she smote her hand: Avellnigh she swoon 'd: 
And, while he gazed wonderingly at her, came 
The Lord of Astolat out, to whom the Prince 



86 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

Reported who he was, and on what quest 
Sent, that he bore the prize and could not find 
The victor, but had ridd'n a random round 
To seek him, and had wearied of the search. 
To whom the Lord of Astolat, ' Bide with us, 
And ride no more at random, noble Prince ! 

630 Here was the knight, and here he left a shield; 

This will he send or come for : furthermore 
Our son is with him ; we shall hear anon. 
Needs must we hear. ' To this the courteous Prince 
Accorded with his wonted courtesy. 
Courtesy with a touch of traitor in it. 
And stay 'd ; and cast his eyes on fair Elaine : 
Where could be found face daintier ? then her shape 
From forehead down to foot, perfect — again 
From foot to forehead exquisitely turn 'd : 

640 'Well— if I bide, lo! this wild flower for me!' 

And oft they met among the garden yews, 
And there he set himself to play upon her 
With sallying wit, free flashes from a height 
Above her, graces of the court, and songs, 
Sighs, and slow smiles, and golden eloquence 
And amorous adulation, till the maid 
Rebeird against it, saying to him, 'Prince, 
loyal nephew of our noble King, 
Why ask you not to see the shield he left, 

650 Whence you might learn his name? Why slight 

your King, 
And lose the quest he sent you on, and prove 
No surer than our falcon yesterday. 
Who lost the hern we slipt her at, and went 
To all the winds?' 'Nay, by mine head,' said he^ 
*I lose it, as we lose the lark in heaven, 
damsel, in the light of your blue eyes ; 
But an ye will it let me see the shield. ' 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE 87 

And when the shield was brought, and Gawain saw 

Sir Lancelot's azure lions, crown 'd with gold, 

Ramp in the field, he smote his thigh, and mock 'd : 660 

' Right was the King ! our Lancelot ! that true man ! ' 

*And right was I,' she answer 'd merrily, 'I, 

Who dream 'd my knight the greatest knight of all. * 

'And if I dream 'd,* said Gawain, 'that you love 

This greatest knight, your pardon! lo, ye know it! 

Speak therefore : shall I waste myself in vain % ^ 

Full simple was her answer, ' What know I ? 

My brethren have been all my fellowship ; 

And I, when often they have talk'd of love, 

Wish'd it had been my mother, for they talk'd, 670 

Meseem 'd, of what they knew not ; so myself — 

I know not if I know what true love is, 

But if I know, then, if I love not him, 

I know there is none other I can love.' 

'Yea, by God's death,' said he, 'ye love him well, 

But would not, knew ye what all others know, 

And whom he loves.' 'So be it,' cried Elaine, 

And lifted her fair face and moved away : 

But he pursued her, calling, 'Stay a little! 

One golden minute 's grace ! he wore your sleeve : 680 

Would he break faith with one I may not name ? 

Must our true man change like a leaf at last? 

Nay — like enow : why then, far be it from me 

To cross our mighty Lancelot in his loves ! 

And, damsel, for I deem you know full well 

Where your great knight is hidden, let me leave 

My quest with you ; the diamond also : here ! 

For if you love, it will be sweet to give it ; 

And if he love, it will be sweet to have it 

From your own hand ; and whether he love or not, 690 

A diamond is a diamond. Fare you well 

A thousand times! — a thousand times farewell! 



88 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

Yet, if he love, and his love hold, we two 
May meet at court hereafter : there, I think, 
So ye will learn the courtesies of the court, 
We two shall know each other.' 

Then he gave, 
And slightly kiss'd the hand to which he gave, 
The diamond, and all wearied of the quest 
Leapt on his horse, and carolling as he went 
700 A true-love ballad, lightly rode away. 

Thence to the court he past ; there told the King 
What the King knew, 'Sir Lancelot is the knight.' 
And added, ' Sir, my liege, so much I learnt ; 
But fail'd to find him, tho' I rode all round 
The region : but I lighted on the maid 
Whose sleeve he wore; she loves him; and to her, 
Deeming our courtesy is the truest law, 
I gave the diamond : she will render it ; 
For by mine head she knows his hiding-place. ' 

710 The seldom-frowning King frowned, and replied, 

* Too courteous truly ! ye shall go no more 
On quest of mine, seeing that ye forget 
Obedience is the courtesy due to kings.' 

He spake and parted. Wroth, but all in awe. 
For twenty strokes of the blood, without a word. 
Linger 'd that other, staring after him; 
Then shook his hair, strode off, and buzz'd abroad 
About the maid of Astolat, and her love. 
All ears were prick 'd at once, all tongues were 
loosed : 



710. frowned: because Gawain had not prosecuted the quest 
until he had found Lancelot. 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE 89 

*The maid of Astolat loves Sir Lancelot, 720 

Sir Lancelot loves the maid of Astolat.' 

Some read the King's face, some the Queen's, and 

all 
Had marvel what the maid might be, but most 
Predoom'd her as unworthy. One old dame 
Came suddenly on the Queen with the sharp news. 
She, that had heard the noise of it before, 
But sorrowing Lancelot should have stoop 'd so low, 
Marr'd her friend's aim with pale tranquillity. 
So ran the tale like fire about the court. 
Fire in dry stubble a nine-days' wonder flared: 730 
Till ev'n the knights at banquet twice or thrice 
Forgot to drink to Lancelot and the Queen, 
And pledging Lancelot and the lily maid 
Smiled at each other, while the Queen, who sat 
With lips severely placid, felt the knot 
Climb in her throat, and with her feet unseen 
Crush 'd the wild passion out against the floor 
Beneath the banquet, where the meats became 
As wormwood, and she hated all who pledged. 

But far away the maid in Astolat, 740 

Her guiltless rival, she that ever kept 
The one-day-seen Sir Lancelot in her heart, 
Crept to her father, while he mused alone, 
Sat on his knee, stroked his gray face and said, 
'Father, you call me wilful, and the fault 
Is yours who let me have my will, and now. 
Sweet father, will you let me lose my witsT 
*Nay,' said he, 'surely.' 'Wherefore, let me hence,' 
She answer 'd, 'and find out our dear Lavaine.' 
*Ye will not lose your wits for dear Lavaine: 750 

Bide,' answer 'd he: 'we needs must hear anon 
Of him, and of that other.' 'Ay,' she said, 



90 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

'And of that other, for I needs must hence 

And find that other, wheresoe'er he be, 

And with mine own hand give his diamond to him, 

Lest I be found as faithless in the quest 

As yon proud Prince who left the quest to me. 

Sweet father, I behold him in my dreams 

Gaunt as it were the skeleton of himself, 

760 Death-pale, for lack of gentle maiden's aid. 

The gentler-born the maiden, the more bound, 
My father, to be sweet and serviceable 
To noble knights in sickness, as ye know 
When these have worn their tokens: let me hencu 
I pray you.' Then her father nodding said, 
'Ay, ay, the diamond: wit ye well, my child. 
Right fain were I to learn this knight were whole, 
Being our greatest : yea, and you must give it — 
And sure I think this fruit is hung too high 

770 For any mouth to gape for save a queen's — 

Nay, I mean nothing : so then, get you gone, 
Being so very wilful you must go.* 

Lightly, her suit allow 'd, she slipt away. 
And while she made her ready for her ride, 
Her father's latest word humm'd in her ear, 
'Being so \ery wilful you must go,' 
And changed itself and echo'd in her heart, 
'Being so very wilful you must die.' 
But she was happy enough and shook it off, 
780 As we shake off the bee that buzzes at us ; 

And in her heart she answer 'd it and said, 
'What matter, so I help him back to life?* 
Then far away with good Sir Torre for guide 
Rode o'er the long backs of the bushless downs 
To Camelot, and before the city-gates 
Came on her brother with a happy face 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE 91 

Making a roan horse caper and curvet 

For pleasure all about a field of flowers: 

Whom when she saw, 'Lavaine/ she cried, ^Lavaine, 

How fares my lord Sir Lancelot?' He amazed, 790 

* Torre and Elaine ! why here ? Sir Lancelot ! 

How know ye my lord 's name is Lancelot '? ' 

But when the maid had told him all her tale, 

Then turn'd Sir Torre, and being in his moods 

Left them, and under the strange-statued gate, 

Where Arthur's wars were render 'd mystically. 

Past up the still rich city to his kin, 

His own far blood, which dwelt at Camelot; 

And her, Lavaine across the poplar grove 

Led to the caves : there first she saw the casque 800 

Of Lancelot on the wall : her scarlet sleeve^ 

Tho' carved and cut, and half the pearls away. 

Stream 'd from it still ; and in her heart she laugh 'd, 

Because he had not loosed it from his helm. 

But meant once more perchance to tourney in it. 

And when they gain'd the cell wherein he slept, 

His battle-writhen arms and mighty hands 

Lay naked on the wolfskin, and a dream 

Of dragging down his enemy made them move. 

Then she that saw him lying unsleek, unshorn, 810 

Gaunt as it were the skeleton of himself. 

Utter 'd a little tender dolorous cry. 

The sound not wonted in a place so still 

Woke the sick knight, and while he roll'd his eyes 

Yet blank from sleep, she started to him, saying, 

*Your prize the diamond sent you by the King:* 

His eyes glisten 'd : she fancied ' Ls it for me ? ' 

And when the maid had told him all the tale 

Of King and Prince, the diamond sent, the quest 

Assign 'd to her not worthy of it, she knelt 820 

Full lowly by the corners of his bed, 



92 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

And laid the diamond in his open hand. 
Iler face was near, and as we kiss the child 
That does the task assign 'd, he kiss'd her face. 
At once she slipt like water to the floor. 
'Alas,' he said, 'your ride hath wearied you. 
Rest must you have.' 'No rest for me,' she said; 
'Nay, for near you, fair lord, I am at rest.' 
What might she mean by that ? his large black eyes, 
830 Yet larger thro ' his leanness, dwelt upon her, 

Till all her heart's sad secret blazed itself 
In the heart's colours on her simple face; 
And Lancelot look'd and was perplext in mind, 
And being weak in body said no more; 
But did not love the colour; woman's love. 
Save one, he not regarded, and so turn'd 
Sighing, and feign 'd a sleep until he slept. 

Then rose Elaine and glided thro' the fields, 
And past beneath the weirdly-sculptured gates 

840 Far up the dim rich city to her kin; 

There bode the night : but woke with dawn, and past 
Do\^Ti thro' the dim rich city to the fields. 
Thence to the cave : so day by day she past 
In either twilight ghost-like to and fro 
Gliding, and every day she tended him. 
And likewise many a night : and Lancelot 
Would, tho' he call'd his wound a little hurt 
Whereof he should be quickly whole, at times 
Brain-feverous in his heat and agony, seem 

850 Uncourteous, even he: but the meek maid 

Sweetly forbore him ever, being to him 
IMeeker than any child to a rough nurse. 
Milder than any mother to a sick child, 
And never woman yet, since man 's first fall, 
Did kindlier unto man, but her deep love 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE 93 

Upbore her ; till the hermit, skill 'd in all 

The simples and the science of that time, 

Told him that her fine care had saved his life. 

And the sick man forgot her simple blush, 

Would call her friend and sister, sweet Elaine, 860 

Would listen for her coming and regret 

Her parting step, and held her tenderly. 

And loved her with all love except the love 

Of man and woman when they love their best, 

Closest and sweetest, and had died the death 

In any knighty fashion for her sake. 

And peradventure had he seen her first 

She might have made this and that other world 

Another world for the sick man ; but now 

The shackles of an old love straiten 'd him, 870 

His honour rooted in dishonour stood. 

And faith unfaithful kept him falsely true. 

Yet the great knight in his mid-sickness made 
Full many a holy vow and pure resolve. 
These, as but born of sickness, could not live: 
For when the blood ran lustier in him again, 
Full often the bright image of one face, 
Making a treacherous quiet in his heart, 
Dispersed his resolution like a cloud. 
Then if the maiden, while that ghostly grace 880 

Beam'd on his fancj% spoke, he answer 'd not, 
Or short and coldly, and she knew right well 
What the rough sickness meant, but what this meant 
She knew not, and the sorrow dimm 'd her sight. 
And drave her ere her time across the fields 
Far into the rich city, where alone 
She murmur 'd, 'Vain, in vain: it cannot be. 
He will not love me ; how then ^ must I die ! ' 
Then as a little helpless innocent bird, 
5 



94 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

c^O That lias but one plain passage of few notes, 

Will sing the simple passage o'er and o'er 
For all an April morning, till the ear 
Wearies to hear it, so the simple maid 
Went half the night repeating, 'Must I die?' 
And now to right she turn 'd, and now~to left, 
And found no ease in turning or in rest ; 
And 'Him or death,' she mutter 'd, 'death or him,* 
^^^Again and like a burthen, 'Him or death.' 

But when Sir Lancelot's deadly hurt was whole, 

900 To Astolat returning rode the three. 

There morn by morn, arraying her sweet self 
In that wherein she deem'd she look'd her best, 
She came before Sir Lancelot, for she thought 
'If I be loved, these are my festal robes, 
If not, the victim's flowers before he fall.' 
And Lancelot ever prest upon the maid 
That she should ask some goodly gift of him 
For her own self or hers ; ' and do not shun 
To speak the wish most near to your true heart ; 

910 Such service have ye done me, that I make 

My will of yours, and Prince and Lord am I 
In mine own land, and what I will I can.' 
Then like a ghost she lifted up her face. 
But like a ghost without the power to speak. 
And Lancelot saw that she withheld her wish, 
And bode among them yet a little space 
Till he should learn it; and one morn it chanced 
He found her in among the garden yews. 
And said, 'Delay no longer, speak your wish, 

905. the victim's flowers. In Greek sacrifices the head of the 
animal doomed to die was wreathed with flowers. 

912. mine own land. Lancelot's realm was in Brittany "be- 
yond the seas." Cf. 953. 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE 95 

Seeing I go to-day : ' then out she brake : 920 

'Going? and we shall never see you more. 

And I must die for want of one bold word/ 

' Speak : that I live to hear, ' he said, ' is yours. ' 

Then suddenly and passionately she spoke : 

* I have gone mad. I love you : let me die. ' 

' Ah, sister, ' answer 'd Lancelot, ' what is this ? ' 

And innocently extending her w^iite arms, 

'Your love,' she said, 'your love — to be your wife.' 

And Lancelot answer 'd, 'Had I chosen to wed, 

I had been wedded earlier, sweet Elaine : 930 

But now there never will be wife of mine.' 

' No, no, ' she cried, ' I care not to be wife, 

But to be with you still, to see your face. 

To serve you, and to follow you thro ' the world. ' 

And Lancelot answer 'd, 'Nay, the world, the world. 

All ear and eye, with such a stupid heart 

To interpret ear and eye, and such a tongue 

To blare its own interpretation — nay, 

Full ill then should I quit your brother's love. 

And your good father's kindness.' And she said, 940 

'Not to be with you, not to see your face — 

Alas for me then, my good days are done.' 

' Nay, noble maid, ' he answer 'd, ' ten times nay ! 

This is not love : but love 's first flash in youth, 

Most common : yea, I know it of mine own self : 

And you yourself will smile at your own self 

Hereafter, when you yield your flower of life 

To one more fitly yours, not thrice your age : 

And then will I, for true you are and sweet 

Beyond mine old belief in womanhood, 950 



923. that I live to hear is yours: i. e., it is owing to your 
care that I am alive. 
939, Quit: requite, 



96 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

More specially should your good knight be poor, 
Endow you with broad land and territory 
Even to the half my realm beyond the seas, 
So that would make you happy: furthermore, 
Ev'n to the death, as tho' ye were my blood, 
In all your quarrels will I be your knight. 
This will I do, dear damsel, for your sake, 
And more than this I cannot.' 

While he spoke 
She neither blush 'd nor shook, but deathly-pale 
960 Stood grasping what was nearest, then replied : 

'Of all this will I nothing;' and so fell. 
And thus they bore her swooning to her tower. 

Then spake, to whom thro' those black walls of 
yew 
Their talk had pierced, her father: 'Ay, a flash, 
I fear me, that will strike my blossom dead. 
Too courteous are ye, fair Lord Lancelot. 
I pray you, use some rough discourtesy 
To blunt or break her passion.' 

Lancelot said, 
' That were against me : Avhat I can I will ; ' 
970 And there that day remain 'd, and toward even 

Sent for his shield : full meekly rose the maid, 
Stript off the case, and gave the naked shield ; 
Then, when she heard his horse upon the stones. 
Unclasping flung the casement back, and look'd 
Down on his helm, from which her sleeve had gone. 
And Lancelot knew the little clinking sound ; 



964. flash. The father repeats Lancelot's word (944) in 
another meaning. 

976. clinking sound: made by the opening of the window. 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE 97 

And she by tact of love was well aware 

That Lancelot knew that she was looking at him. 

And yet he glanced not up, nor waved his hand, 

Nor bade farewell, but sadly rode away. 980 

This was the one discourtesy that he used. 

So in her tower alone the maiden sat : 
His very shield was gone; only the ease, 
Her own poor work, her empty labour, left. 
But still she heard him, still his picture f orm.'d 
And grew between her and the pictured wall. 
Then came her father, saying in low tones, 
'Have comfort,' whom she greeted quietly. 
Then came her brethren saying, 'Peace to thee, 
Sweet sister,' whom she answer 'd with all calm. 990 
But when they left her to herself again. 
Death, like a friend's voice from a distant field 
Approaching thro' the darkness, call'd; the owls 
Wailing had power upon her, and she mixt 
Her fancies with the sallow-rifted glooms 
Of evening, and the meanings of the wind. 

And in those days she made a little song, 
And call'd her song 'The Song of Love and Death,' 
And sang it : sweetly could she make and sing. 

'Sweet is true love tho' given in vain, in vain; 1000 
And sweet is death who puts an end to pain : 
I know not which is sweeter, no, not I. 

'Love, art thou sweet? then bitter death must be: 
Love, thou art bitter; sweet is death to me. 

Love, if death be sweeter, let me die. 

'Sweet love, that seems not made to fade away. 
Sweet death, that seems to make us loveless clay, 

1 know not which is sweeter, no, not I. 



98 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

'I fain would follow love, if that could be; 
1010 I needs must follow death, who calls for me ; 

Call and I follow, I follow ! let me die. ' 

High with the last line sealed her voice, and this, 
All in a fiery dawning wild with wind 
That shook her tower, the brothers heard, and 

thought 
With shuddering, 'Hark the Phantom of the house 
That ever shrieks before a death,' and call'd 
The father, and all three in hurry and fear 
Ran to her, and lo ! the blood-red light of dawn 
Flared on her face, she shrilling, * Let me die ! ' 

1020 And when we dwell upon a word we know, 

Repeating, till the word we know so well 
Becomes a wonder, and we know not why. 
So dwelt the father on her face, and thought 
*Is this Elaine?' till back the maiden fell, 
Then gave a languid hand to each, and lay, 
Speaking a still good-morrow with her eyes. 
At last she said, 'Sweet brothers, yesternight 
I seem'd a curious little maid again, 
As happy as when we dwelt among the woods, 

1030 And when ye used to take me with the flood 

Up the great river in the boatman's boat. 
Only ye would not pass beyond the cape 
That has the poplar on it: there ye fixt 
Your limit, oft returning with the tide. 
And yet I cried because ye would not pass 
Beyond it, and far up the shining flood 
Until we found the palace of the King. 
And yet ye would not ; but this night I dream 'd 
That I was all alone upon the flood, 

1040 And then I said, ' ' Now shall I have my will : ' * 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE 99 

And there I woke, but still the wish remain 'd. 

So let me hence that I may pass at last 

Beyond the poplar and far up the flood, 

Until I find the palace of the King. 

There will I enter in among them all, 

And no man there will dare to mock at me ; 

But there the fine Gawain will wonder at me. 

And there the great Sir Lancelot muse at me; 

Gawain, who bade a thousand farewells to me, 

Lancelot, who coldly went, nor bade me one: 1050 

And there the King will know me and my love, 

And there the Queen herself will pity me. 

And all the gentle court will welcome me, 

And after my long voyage I shall rest ! ' 

* Peace,' said her father, '0 my child, ye seem 
Light-headed, for what force is yours to go 

So far, being sick? and wherefore would ye look 
On this proud fellow again, who scorns us alH' 

Then the rough Torre began to heave and move. 
And bluster into stormy sobs and say, 1060 

* I never loved him : an I meet with him, 
I care not howsoever great he be, 
Then will I strike at him and strike him down. 
Give me good fortune, I will strike him dead, 
For this discomfort he hath done the house. ' 

To whom the gentle sister made reply, 
*Fret not yourself, dear brother, nor be wroth, 
Seeing it is no more Sir Lancelot's fault 
Not to love me, than it is mine to love 
Him of all men who seems to me the highest.* 1070 

* Highest?' the father answer 'd, echoing 'highest?' 
(He meant to break the passion in her) 'nay, 



100 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

Daughter, I know not what you call the highest; 
But this I know, for all the people know it, 
He loves the Queen, and in an open shame ; 
And she returns his love in open shame; 
If this be high, what is it to be low 1 ' 

Then spake the lily maid of Astolat : 
'Sweet father, all too faint and sick am I 

1080 For anger: these are slanders: never yet 

"Was noble man but made ignoble talk. 
He makes no friend who never made a foe. 
But now it is my glory to have loved 
One peerless, without stain : so let me pass, 
My father, howsoe'er I seem to you, 
Not all unhappy, having loved God's best 
And greatest, tho' my love had no return: 
Yet, seeing you desire your child to live, 
Thanks, but you work against your own desire; 

1090 For if I could believe the things you say 

I should but die the sooner; wherefore cease. 
Sweet father, and bid call the ghostly man 
Hither, and let me shrive me clean, and die. ' 

So when the ghostly man had come and gone, 
She with a face, bright as for sin forgiven. 
Besought Lavaine to write as she devised 
A letter, word for word; and when he ask'd 
* Is it for Lancelot, is it for my dear lord ? 
Then will I bear it gladly ; ' she replied, 
1100 'For Lancelot and the Queen and all the world. 

But I myself must bear it.' Then he wrote 
The letter she devised ; which being writ 
And folded, '0 sweet father, tender and true, 



1092. the ghostly man: the priest. 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE 101 

Deny me not,' she said — 'ye never yet 

Denied my fancies — this, however strange, 

My latest : lay the letter in my hand 

A little ere I die, and close the hand 

Upon it ; I shall guard it even in death. 

And when the heat is gone from out my heart, 

Then take the little bed on w^iich I died 1110 

For Lancelot 's love, and deck it like the Queen 's 

For richness, and me also like the Queen 

In all I have of rich, and lay me on it. 

And let there be prepared a chariot-bier 

To take me to the river, and a barge 

Be ready on the river, clothed in black. 

I go in state to court, to meet the Queen. 

There surely I shall speak for mine own self, 

And none of you can speak for me so well. 

And therefore let our dumb old man alone 1120 

Go with me, he can steer and row, and he 

Will guide me to that palace, to the doors.' 

She ceased: her father promised; whereupon 
She grew so cheerful that they deem'd her death 
Was rather in the fantasy than the blood. 
But ten slow mornings past, and on the eleventh 
Her father laid the letter in her hand, 
And closed the hand upon it, and she died. 
So that day there was dole in Astolat. >/^ 

But when the next sun brake from under- 1130 
ground. 
Then, those two brethren slowly with bent brows, 
Accompanying, the sad chariot-bier 
Past like a shadow thro ' the field, that shone 
Full-summer, to that stream whereon the barge, 
Paird all its length in blackest samite, lay. 



102 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

There sat the lifelong creature of the house, 
Loyal, the dumb old servitor, on deck, 
Winking his eyes, and twisted all his face. 
So those two brethren from the chariot took 

1140 And on the black decks laid her in her bed, 

Set in her hand a lily, o'er her hung 
The silken case with braided blazonings. 
And kiss'd her quiet brows, and saying to her 
'Sister, farewell for ever,' and again 
* Farewell, sweet sister,' parted all in tears. 
Then rose the dumb old servitor, and the dead, 
Oar'd by the dumb, went upward with the flood- 
In her right hand the lily, in her left 
The letter — all her bright hair streaming down — 

1150 And all the coverlid was cloth of gold 

Drawn to her waist, and she herself in white 
All but her face, and that clear-featured face 
Was lovely, for she did not seem as dead. 
But fast asleep, and lay as tho' she smiled. 

That day Sir Lancelot at the palace craved 
Audience of Guinevere, to give at last 
The price of half a realm, his costly gift, 
Hard-won and hardly won with bruise and blow, 
With deaths of others, and almost his own, 
1160 The nine-years-fought-for diamonds : for he saw 

One of her house, and sent him to the Queen 
Bearing his wish, whereto the Queen agreed 
With such and so unmoved a majesty 
She might have seem 'd her statue, but that he. 
Low-drooping till he well nigh kiss'd her feet 



1136. creature: dependent. 

1147. the flood: the tide. 

1160. diamonds: in grammatical apposition with gift, 1157. 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE 103 

For loyal awe, saw with a sidelong eye 
The shadow of some piece of pointed lace, 
In the Queen's shadow, vibrate on the walls, 
And parted, laughing in his courtly heart. 

All in an oriel on the summer side, 1170 

Vine-clad, of Arthur's palace toward the stream, 
They met, and Lancelot kneeling utter 'd, ' Queen, 
Lady, my liege, in whom I have my joy. 
Take, what I had not won except for you. 
These jewels, and make me happy, making them 
An armlet for the roundest arm on earth. 
Or necklace for a neck to which the swan 's 
Is tawnier than her cj^gnet 's : these are words : 
Your beauty is your beauty, and I sin 
In speaking, yet grant my worship of it 1180 

Words, as we grant grief tears. Such sin in words 
Perchance, we both can pardon : but, my Queen, 
I hear of rumours flying thro' your court. 
Our bond, as not the bond of man and wife, 
Should have in it an absoluter trust 
To make up that defect: let rumours be: 
When did not rumours flyl these, as I trust 
That you trust me in your own nobleness, 
I may not well believe that you believe.' 

While thus he spoke, half -turn 'd away, the Queen 1190 
Brake from the vast oriel-embowering vine 
Leaf after leaf, and tore, and cast them off, 
Till all the place whereon she stood was green; 
Then, when he ceased, in one cold passive hand 
Received at once and laid aside the gems 
There on a table near her, and replied: 



1170. oriel: a projecting window. 

1180, grant^words; i. e., ^llow me to speak, 



104 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

'It may be, I am quicker of belief 
Than yon believe me, Lancelot of the Lake. 
Our bond is not the bond of man and wife. 

1200 This good is in it, whatsoe'er of ill, 

It can be broken easier. I for you 
This many a year have done despite and wrong 
To one whom ever in my heart of hearts 
I did acknbwledge nobler. What are these? 
Diamonds for me ! they had been thrice their worth 
Being your gift, had you not lost your own. 
To loyal hearts the value of all gifts 
Must vary as the giver 's. Not for me ! 
For her! for your new fancy. Only this 

1210 Grant me, I pray you: have your joys apart. 

I doubt not that however changed, you keep 
So much of what is graceful : and myself 
Would shun to break those bounds of courtesy 
In which as Arthur 's Queen I move and rule : 
So cannot speak my mind. An end to this! 
A strange one! yet I take it with Amen. 
So pray you, add my diamonds to her pearls; 
Deck her with these; tell her she shines me down: 
An armlet for an arm to which the Queen 's 

1220 Is haggard, or a necklace for a neck 

O as much fairer — as a faith once fair 
Was richer than these diamonds — hers not mine — 
Nay, by the mother of our Lord himself. 
Or hers or mine, mine now to work my will — 
She shall not have them.' 

Saying which she seized, 
And, thro' the casement standing wide for heat. 
Flung them, and down they flash 'd, and smote the 

stream. 
Then from the smitten surface flash 'd, as it were, 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE 105 

Diamonds to meet them, and they past away. 

Then while Sir Lancelot leant, in half disdain 1230 

At love, life, all things, on the window ledge, 

Close underneath his eyes, and right across 

Where these had fallen, slowly past the barge 

"Whereon the lily maid of Astolat 

Lay smiling, like a star in blackest night. 

But the wild Queen, who saw not, burst away 
To weep and wail in secret ; and the barge, 
On to the palace-doorway sliding, paused. 
There two stood arm 'd, and kept the door ; to whom. 
All up the marble stair, tier over tier, 1240 

Were added mouths that gaped, and eyes that ask'd 
' What is it ? ' but that oarsman 's haggard face, 
As hard and still as is the face that men 
Shape to their fancy's eye from broken rocks 
On some cliff-side, appall'd them, and they said, 
'He is enchanted, cannot speak — and she. 
Look how she sleeps — the Fairy Queen, so fair! 
Yea, but how pale ! what are they ? flesh and blood ? 
Or come to take the King to Fairyland? 
For some do hold our Arthur cannot die, 1250 

But that he passes into Fairyland.' 

While thus they babbled of the King, the King 
Came girt with knights: then turn'd the tongueless 

man 
From the half -face to the full eye, and rose 
And pointed to the damsel, and the doors. 
So Arthur bade the meek Sir Percivale 
And pure Sir Galahad to uplift the maid; 
And reverently they bore her into hall. 



1254. From the half -face to the full eye: he turned squarely, 
from profile to full face. 



106 IDYLLS or THE KING 

Then came the fine Gawain and wonder 'd at her, 
1260 And Lancelot later came and mused at her, 

And last the Queen herself, and pitied her: 
But Arthur spied the letter in her hand, 
Stoopt, took, brake seal, and read it; this was all: 

'Most noble lord, Sir Lancelot of the Lake, 
I, sometime call'd tlie maid of Astolat, 
Come, for you left me taking no farewell, 
Hither, to take my last farewell of you. 
I loved you, and my love had no return, 
And therefore my true love has been my death. 
1270 And therefore to our Lady Guinevere, 

And to all other ladies, I make moan: 
Pray for my soul, and yield me burial. 
Pray for my soul thou too, Sir Lancelot, 
As thou art a knight peerless.' 

Thus he read; 
And ever in the reading, lords and dames 
Wept, looking often from his face who read 
To hers which lay so silent, and at times. 
So touch 'd were they, half -thinking that her lips, 
Who had devised the letter, moved again. 
1280 Then freely spoke Sir Lancelot to them all : 

*My lord liege Arthur, and all ye that hear, 
Know that for this most gentle maiden's death 
Right heavy am I; for good she was and true, 
But loved me with a love beyond all love 
In women, whomsoever I have known. 
Yet to be loved makes not to love again ; 
Not at my years, however it hold in youth. 
I swear by truth and knighthood that I gave 
No cause, not willingly, for such a love : 



1283. heavy: in Middle English, "weighted with sorrow." 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE 107 

To this I call my friends in testimony, 1290 

Her brethren, and her father, who himself 

Besought me to be plain and blunt, and use, 

To break her passion, some discourtesy 

Against my nature: what I could, I did. 

I left her and I bade her no farewell ; 

Tho', had I dreamt the damsel would have died, 

I might have put my wits to some rough use. 

And help 'd her from herself. ' 

Then said the Queen 
(Sea was her wrath, yet working after storm), 
^Ye might at least have done her so much grace, 1300 

Fair lord, as would have help 'd her from her death. ' 
He raised his head, their eyes met and hers fell, 
He adding, 'Queen, she would not be content 
Save that I wedded her, which could not be. 
Then might she follow me thro' the world, she 

ask 'd ; 
It could not be. I told her that her love 
Was but the flash of youth, would darken down 
To rise hereafter in a stiller flame 
Toward one more worthy of her — then would I, 
More specially were he, she wedded, poor, 1310 

Estate them with large land and territory 
In mine own realm beyond the narrow seas, 
To keep them in all joyance : more than this 
I could not ; this she would not, and she died. ' 

He pausing, Arthur answer 'd, '0 my knight, 
It will be to thy worship, as my knight. 
And mine, as head of all our Table Round, 
To see that she be buried worshipf ully. ' 

So toward that shrine which then in all the realm 
Was richest, Arthur leading, slowly went 1320 



108 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

The marshall'd Order of their Table Round, 
And Lancelot sad beyond his wont, to see 
The maiden buried, not as one unknown, 
Nor meanly, but with gorgeous obsequies, 
And mass, and rolling music, like a queen. 
And when the knights had laid her comely head 
Low in the dust of half-forgotten kings. 
Then Arthur spake among them, 'Let her tomb 
Be costly, and her image thereupon, 

1330 And let the shield of Lancelot at her feet 

Be carven, and her lily in her hand. 
And let the story of her dolorous voyage 
For all true hearts be blazon 'd on her tomb 
In letters gold and azure ! ' which was wrought 
Thereafter ; but when now the lords and dames 
And people, from the high door streaming, brake 
Disorderly, as homeward each, the Queen, 
Who mark'd Sir Lancelot w^iere he moved apart, 
Drew near, and sigli'd in passing, 'Lancelot, 

1340 Forgive me; mine was jealousy in love.' 

He answer 'd with his eyes upon the ground, 
'That is love's curse; pass on, my Queen, forgiven.' 
But Arthur, who beheld his cloudy brows. 
Approach 'd him, and with full affection said, 

'Lancelot, my Lancelot, thou in whom I have 
Most joy and most affiance, for I know 
What thou hast been in battle by my side. 
And many a time have watch 'd thee at the tilt 
Strike down the lusty and long-practised knight, 
1350 And let the younger and unskill'd go by 

To win his honour and to make his name, 
And loved thy courtesies and thee, a man 



1334. gold and azure: Lancelot's colors. 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE 109 

Made to be loved; but now I would to God, 

Seeing the homeless trouble in thine eyes, 

Thou couldst have loved this maiden, shaped, it 

seems. 
By God for thee alone, and from her face, 
If one may judge the living by the dead. 
Delicately pure and marvellously fair, 
Who might have brought thee, now a lonely man 
Wifeless and heirless, noble issue, sons 1360 

Born to the glory of thy name and fame, 
My knight, the great Sir Lancelot of the Lake. ' 

Then answer 'd Lancelot, 'Fair she was, my King, 
Pure, as you ever wish your knights to be. 
To doubt her fairness were to w^ant an eye, 
To doubt her pureness were to want a heart — 
Yea, to be loved, if what is worthy love 
Could bind him, but free love will not be bound/ 

'Free love, so bound, were freest,' said the King. 
'Let love be free; free love is for the best: 1370 

And, after heaven, on our dull side of death, 
What should be best, if not so pure a love 
Clothed in so pure a loveliness? yet thee 
She fail'd to bind, tho^ being, as I think, 
Unbound as yet, and gentle, as I know.' 

And Lancelot answer 'd nothing, but he went. 
And at the inrunning of a little brook 
Sat by the river in a cove, and watch 'd 
The high reed wave, and lifted up his eyes 
And saw the barge that brought her moving down, 1380 
Far-off, a blot upon the stream, and said 
Low in himself, 'Ah, simple heart and sweet, 
Ye loved me, damsel, surely with a love 
Far tenderer than my Queen 's. Pray for thy soul ? 



110 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

Ay, that will I. Farewell too — now at last — 

Farewell, fair lily. ''Jealousy in love?" 

Not rather dead love's harsh heir, jealous pride? 

Queen, if I grant the jealousy as of love, 

May not your crescent fear for name and fame 

1390 Speak, as it waxes, of a love that wanes? 

Why did the King dwell on my name to me ? 
Mine own name shames me, seeming a reproach, 
Lancelot, whom the Lady of the Lake 
Caught from his mother's arms — ^the wondrous one 
Who passes thro ' the vision of the night — 
She chanted snatches of mysterious hymns 
Heard on the winding waters, eve and morn 
She kiss 'd me saying, ' ' Thou art fair, my child, 
As a king 's son, ' ' and often in her arms 

1400 She bare me, pacing on the dusky mere. 

Would she had drown 'd me in it, where'er it be! 
For what am I ? what profits me my name 
Of greatest knight? I fought for it, and have it: 
Pleasure to have it, none; to lose it, pain; 
Now grown a part of me: but what use in it? 
To make men worse by making my sin known ? 
Or sin seem less, the sinner seeming great? 
Alas for Arthur's greatest knight, a man 
Not after Arthur 's heart ! I needs must break 

1410 These bonds that so defame me : not without 

She wills it: would I, if she will'd it? nay. 
Who knows ? but if I would not, then may God, 
I pray him, send a sudden Angel down 
To seize me by the hair and bear me far. 
And fling me deep in that forgotten mere, 
Among the tumbled fragments of the hills. * 

So groan 'd Sir Lancelot in remorseful pain, 
Not knowing he should die a holy man. 



THE HOLY GRAIL 

From noiseful arms, and acts of prowess done 

In tournament or tilt, Sir Percivale, 

Whom Arthur and his knighthood call'd The Pure, 

Had pass 'd into the silent life of prayer, 

Praise, fast, and alms; and leaving for the cowl 

The helmet in an abbey far away 

From Camelot, there, and not long after, died. 

And one, a fellow-monk among the rest, 
Ambrosius, loved him much beyond the rest. 
And honour 'd him, and wrought into his heart 10 

A way by love that waken 'd love within. 
To answer that which came : and as they sat 
Beneath a world-old yew-tree, darkening half 
The cloisters, on a gustful April morn 
That puif 'd the swaying branches into smoke 
Above them, ere the summer when he died. 
The monk Ambrosius question 'd Percivale : 

*0 brother, I have seen this yew-tree smoke. 
Spring after spring, for half a hundred years: 
For never have I known the world without, 20 

Nor ever stray 'd beyond the pale: but thee. 
When first thou camest — ^such a courtesy 
Spake thro' the limbs and in the voice — I knew 
For one of those who eat in Arthur 's hall ; 



21. pale: limit, fence, wall, of the monastery. 

Ill 



112 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

For good ye are and bad, and like to coins, 
Some true, some light, but every one of you 
Stamp 'd with the image of the King ; and now 
Tell me, what drove thee from the Table Round, 
My brother? was it earthly passion crost?' 

30 'Nay,' said the knight; ^for no such passion mine. 

But the sweet vision of the Holy Grail 
Drove me from all vainglories, rivalries, 
And earthly heats that spring and sparkle out 
Among us in the jousts, while women watch 
Who wins, who falls; and waste the spiritual 

strength 
Within us, better offer 'd up to Heaven.' 

To whom the monk : * The Holy Grail ! — I trust 
We are green in Heaven 's eyes ; but here too much 
We moulder — as to things without I mean — 
40 Yet one of your own knights, a guest of ours. 

Told us of this in our refectory, 
But spake with such a sadness and so low 
We heard not half of what he said. What is it ? 
The phantom of a cup that comes and goes ? ' 

*Nay, monk! what phantom?' answer 'd Percivale. 
*The cup, the cup itself, from which our Lord 
Drank at the last sad supper with his own. 
This, from the blessed land of Aromat — 



38. green: innocent. 

39. we moulder: we get no news; we lose connection with 
the world. 

40. one of your own knights: cf. 696-704. 

45. what phantom? no phantom. 

46. the cup: Matthew, 26; 27. 
48. Aromat: Arimathea. 



THE HOLY GRAIL 113 

After the day of darkness, when the dead 

"Went wandering o'er IMoriah — the good saint 50 

Arimath^ean Joseph, journeying brought 

To Glastonbury, where the winter thorn 

Blossoms at Christmas, mindful of our Lord. 

And there awhile it bode ; and if a man 

Could touch or see it, he was heal 'd at once, 

'By faith, of all his ills. But then the times 

Grew to such evil that the holy cup 

Was caught away to Heaven, and disappear 'd.' 

To whom the monk : ' From our old books I know 
That Joseph came of old to Glastonbury, 60 

And there the heathen Prince, Arviragus, 
Gave him an isle of marsh whereon to build ; 
And there he built with wattles from the marsh 
A little lonely church in days of yore. 
For so they say, these books of ours, but seem 
Mute of this miracle, far as I have read. 
But who first saw the holy thing to-day 1 ' y^ 

'A woman,' answer 'd Percivale, 'a nun, 
And one no further off in blood from me 
Than sister ; and if ever holy maid 70 

With knees of adoration wore the stone, 
A holy maid; tho' never maiden glow'd, 
But that was in her earlier maidenhood, 



49. day of darkness: Matthew 27: 52-53. 

50. Moriah: The hill on which the temple at Jerusalem was 
built. 

51. Joseph: Matthew 27: 57-58. 
54. it: the cup. 

63. wattles: interwoven branches or twigs. 

66. this miracle: the cup; The Holy Grail. 

67. today: in the days of Percivale and Ambrosius. 



114 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

With such a fervent flame of human love, 
"Which being rudely blunted, glanced and shot 
Only to holy things ; to prayer and praise 
She gave herself, to fast and alms. And yet, 
Nun as she was, the scandal of the Court, 
Sin against Arthur and the Table Round, 
80 And the strange sound of an adulterous race. 

Across the iron grating of her cell 
Beat, and she pray 'd and fasted all the more. 

*And he to whom she told her sins, or what 
Her all but utter whiteness held for sin, 
A man well-nigh a hundred winters old, 
Spake often with her of the Holy Grail, 
A legend handed down thro' five or six. 
And each of these a hundred winters old. 
From our Lord's time. And when King Arthur 
made 

90 His Table Round, and all men's hearts became 

Clean for a season, surely he had thought 
That now the Holy Grail would come again ; 
But sin broke out. Ah, Christ, that it would come, 
And heal the world of all their wickedness ! 
' * Father ! ' ' ask 'd the maiden, ' ' might it come 
To me by prayer and fasting?" *'Nay, " said he, 
^'I know not, for thy heart is pure as snow." 
And so she pray'd and fasted, till the sun 
Shone, and the wind blew, thro' her, and I thought 

100 She might have risen and floated when I saw her. 

*For on a day she sent to speak with me. 
And when she came to speak, behold her eyes 
Beyond my knowing of them, beautiful, 
Beyond all knowing of them, wonderful, 



THE HOLY GRAIL 115 

Beautiful in the light of holiness. 

And ''0 my brother Percivale," she said, 

' ' Sweet brother, I have seen the Holy Grail : 

For, waked at dead of night, I heard a sound 

As of a silver horn from o 'er the hills 

Blown, and I thought, *It is not Arthur's use 110 

To hunt by moonlight ; ' and the slender sound 

As from a distance beyond distance grew 

Coming upon me — never harp nor horn. 

Nor aught we blow with breath, or touch with hand. 

Was like that music as it came ; and then 

Stream 'd thro' my cell a cold and silver beam. 

And down the long beam stole the Holy Grail, 

Rose-red with beatings in it, as if alive. 

Till all the white walls of my cell were dyed 

With rosy colours leaping on the wall; 120 

And then the music faded, and the Grail 

Past, and the beam decay 'd, and from the walls 

The rasy quiverings died into the night. 

So now the Holy Thing is here again 

Among us, brother, fast thou too and pray, 

And tell thy brother knights to fast and pray, 

That so perchance the vision may be seen 

By thee and those, and all the world be heal'd." 

'Then leaving the pale nun, I spake of this 
To all men ; and myself fasted and pray 'd 130 

Always, and many among us many a week 
Fasted and pray'd even to the uttermost, 
Expectant of the wonder that would be. 

'And one there was among us, ever moved 
Among us in white armour, Galahad. 
' ' God make thee good as thou art beautiful, ' ' 



116 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

Said Arthur, when he dubb 'd him knight ; and none 
In so young youth, was ever made a knight 
Till Galahad: and this Galahad, when he heard 
140 My sister 's vision, fill 'd me with amaze ; 

His eyes became so like her own, they seem'd 
Hers, and himself her brother more than I. 

* Sister or brother none had he ; but some 
Call'd him a son of Lancelot, and some said 
Begotten by enchantment — chatterers they, 
Like birds of passage piping up and down, 

That gape for flies — ^we know not whence they come ; 
For when was Lancelot wanderingly lewd? 

'But she, the wan sweet maiden, shore away 
150 Clean from her forehead all that wealth of hair 

Which made a silken mat-work for her feet ; 
And out of this she plaited broad and long 
A strong sword-belt, and wove with silver thread 
And crimson in the belt a strange device, 
A crimson grail within a silver beam ; 
And saw the bright boy-knight, and bound it on him, 
Saying, ' ' My knight, my love, my knight of heaven, 
O thou, my love, whose love is one with mine, 
I, maiden, round thee, maiden, bind my belt. 
160 Gro forth, for thou shalt see what I have seen, 

And break thro ' all, till one will crown thee king 

Far in the spiritual city : ' ' and as she spake 

She sent the deathless passion in her eyes 

Thro' him, and made him hers, and laid her mind 

On him, and he believed in her belief. 

* Then came a year of miracle : brother, 
In our great hall there stood a vacant chair. 
Fashion 'd by Merlin ere he past away. 



THE HOLY GRAIL 117 

And carven with strange figures ; and in and out 

The figures, like a serpent, ran a scroll 170 

Of letters in a tongue no man could read. 

And Merlin call'd it "The Siege perilous," 

Perilous for good and ill ; " for there, ' ' he said, 

* ' No man could sit but he should lose himself : ' ' 

And once by misadvertence Merlin sat 

In his own chair, and so was lost; but he, 

Galahad, when he heard of Merlin's doom, 

Cried, ' ' If I lose myself, I save myself ! ' ' 

*Then on a summer night it came to pass. 
While the great banquet lay along the hall, 180 

That Galaiiad would sit down in Merlin's chair. 

*And all at once, as there we sat, we heard 
A cracking and a riving of the roofs, 
And rending, and a blast, and overhead 
Thunder, and in the thunder was a cry. 
And in the blast there smote along the hall 
A beam of light seven times more clear than day : 
And down the long beam stole the Holy Grail 
All over cover 'd with a luminous cloud. 
And none might see who bare it, and it past. 190 

But every knight beheld his fellow's face 
As in a glory, and all the knights arose. 
And staring each at other like dumb men 
Stood, till I found a voice and sware a vow. 

* I sware a vow before them all, that I, 
Because I had not seen the Grail, would ride 



172. Siege: Seat. Tennyson explains Siege perilous as "The 
perilous seat which stands for the spiritual imagination." — Hal- 
lam Tennyson: Works of Alfred Tennyson, III, 492. 

177. doom: prophecy. 



118 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

A twelvemonth and a day in quest of it, 
Until I found and saw it, as the nun 
My sister saw it; and Galahad sware the vow, 
200 And good Sir Bors, our Lancelot's cousin, sware. 

And Lancelot sware, and many among the knights. 
And Gawain sware, and louder than the rest.' 

Then spake the monk Ambrosius, asking him, 
*What said the King? Did Arthur take the vow?' 

'Nay, for my lord,' said Percivale, 'the King, 
Was not in hall : for early that same day 
Scaped thro ' a cavern from a bandit hold, 
An outraged maiden sprang into the hall 
Crying on help : for all her shining hair 

210 Was smear 'd with earth, and either milky arm 

Red-rent with hooks of bramble, and all she wore 
Torn as a sail that leaves the rope is torn 
In tempest : so the King arose and went 
To smoke the scandalous hive of those wild bees 
That made such honey in his realm. Howbeit 
Some little of this marvel he too saw, 
Returning o'er the plain that then began 
To darken under Camelot; whence the King 
Look'd up, calling aloud, ''Lo, there! the roofs 

220 Of our great hall are roll 'd in thunder-smoke ! 

Pray Heaven, they be not smitten by the bolt." • 
For dear to Arthur was that hall of ours, 
As having there so oft with all his knights 
Feasted, and as the stateliest under heaven. 



207. scaped: escaped. 

207. hold: rendezvous. 

214. scandalous hive: bandit hold. 



THE HOLY GRAIL 119 

' brother, had you known our mighty hall, 
Which Merlin built for Arthur long ago ! 
For all the sacred mount of Camelot, 
And all the dim rich city, roof by roof, 
Tower after tower, spire beyond spire, 
By grove, and garden-lawn, and rushing brook, 230 
Climbs to the mighty hall that Merlin built. 
And four great zones of sculpture, set betwixt 
With many a mystic symbol, gird the hall : 
And in the lowest beasts are slaying men. 
And in the second men are slaying beasts, 
And on the third are warriors, perfect men, 
And on the fourth are men with growing wings. 
And over all one statue in the mould 
Of Arthur, made by Merlin, with a crown. 
And peak'd wings pointed to the Northern Star. 240 
And eastward fronts the statue, and the crown 
And both the wings are made of gold, and flame 
At sunrise till the people in far fields, 
Wasted so often by the heathen hordes. 
Behold it, crying, "We have still a King/' 

*And, brother, had you known our hall within, 
Broader and higher than any in all the lands ! 
Where twelve great windows blazon Arthur's wars, 
And all the light that falls upon the board 
Streams thro* the twelve great battles of our King. 250 
Nay, one there is, and at the eastern end. 
Wealthy with wandering lines of mount and mere. 
Where Arthur finds the brand Excalibur. 



250. twelve great battles: cf. Lancelot and Elaine, 286-302. 
253. Excalibur; cf. The Coming of Arthur, 294-304 and note 
to 294. 



120 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

And also one to tlie west, and counter to it, 

And blank: and who shall blazon it? when and 

how ? — 
O there, perchance, when all our wars are done, 
The brand Excalibur will be cast away. 

*So to this hall full quickly rode the King, 
In horror lest the work by Merlin wrought, 

260 Dreamlike, should on the sudden vanish, wrapt 

In unremorseful folds of rolling fire. 
And in he rode, and up I glanced, and saw 
The golden dragon sparkling over all : 
And many of those who burnt the hold, their arms 
Hack'd, and their foreheads grimed with smoke, 

and sear'd. 
Follow 'd, and in among bright faces, ours. 
Full of the vision, prest : and then the King 
Spake to me, being nearest, ''Percivale" 
(Because the hall was all in tumult — some 

270 Vowing, and some protesting), ''what is thisV 

* brother, when I told him what had chanced, 
My sister 's vision, and the rest, his face 
Darken 'd, as I have seen it more than once, 
"When some brave deed seem 'd to be done in vain. 
Darken ; and ' ' Woe is me, my knights, ' ' he cried, 
''Had I been here, ye had not sworn the vow." 
Bold was mine answer, "Had thyself been here. 
My King, thou wouldst have sworn." "Yea, yea," 

said he, 
"Art thou so bold and hast not seen the Grail?" 



267. prest: the subject is many, line 264. 



THE HOLY GRAIL 121 



i it 



'Nay, lord, I heard the sound, I saw the light, 280 
But since I did not see the Holy Thing, 
I sware a vow to follow it till I saw. ' ' 

'Then when he ask'd us, knight by knight, if any 
Had seen it, all their answers were as one : 
**Nay, lord, and therefore have we sworn our vows." 

* '*Lo now," said Arthur, ''have ye seen a cloud? 
What go ye into the wilderness to see T ' 

' Then Galahad on the sudden, and in a voice 
Shrilling along the hall to Arthur, call'd, 
"But I, Sir Arthur, saw the Holy Grail, 290 

I saw the Holy Grail and heard a cry — 
'0 Galahad, and Galahad, follow me.' " 

' "Ah, Galahad, Galahad," said the King, "for 
such 
As thou art is the vision, not for these. 
Thy holy nun and thou have seen a sign — 
Holier is none, my Percivale, than she — 
A sign to maim this Order which I made. 
But ye, that follow but the leader 's bell ' ' 
(Brother, the King was hard upon his knights), 
"Taliessin is our fullest throat of song, 300 

And one hath sung and all the dumb will sing. 
Lancelot is Lancelot, and hath overborne 
Five knights at once, and every younger knight, 
Unproven, holds himself as Lancelot, 
Till overborne by one, he learns — and ye. 
What are ye? Galahads? — no, nor Percivales" 



287. Cf. Matthew II: 7. 

297. this order: the Round Table. 



122 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

(For thus it pleased the King to range me close 
After Sir Galahad) ; ''nay," said he, ''but men 
AYith strength and will to right the wrong 'd, of 
poAver 

310 To lay the sudden heads of violence flat, 

Knights that in twelve great battles splash 'd and 

dyed 
The strong White Horse in his own heathen blood — 
But one hath seen, and all the blind will see. 
Go, since your vows are sacred, being made : 
Yet — for ye know the cries of all my realm 
Pass thro' this hall — how often, my knights, 
Your places being vacant at my side, 
This chance of noble deeds will come and go 
L^nchallenged, while ye follow Avandering fires 

320 Lost in the quagmire ! ]\Iany of 3'ou, yea most, 

Return no more : ye think I show^ mj'self 
Too dark a prophet: come now, let us meet 
The morrow morn once more in one full field 
Of gracious pastime, that once more the King, 
Before ye leave him for this Quest, may count 
The yet-unbroken strength of all his knights. 
Rejoicing in that Order which he made." 

' So when the sun broke next from under ground, 
All the great table of our Arthur closed 
330 And clash 'd in such a tourney and so full. 

So many lances broken — never yet 
Had Camelot seen the like, since Arthur came ; 
And I myself and Galahad, for a strength 
Was in us from the vision, overthrew 



312. White Horse: Saxons, 

313. Cf. 301. 



THE HOLY GRAIL 123 

So many knights that all the people cried, 
And almost burst the barriers in their heat, 
Shouting, ' ' Sir Galahad and Sir Percivale ! ' ' 

*But when the next day brake from under 
ground — 
brother, had you known our Camelot, 
Built by old kings, age after age, so old 340 

The King himself had fears that it would fall. 
So strange, and rich, and dim ; for where the roofs 
Totter 'd toward each other in the sky, 
Met foreheads all along the street of those 
Who watch 'd us pass; and lower, and where the 

long 
Rich galleries, lady-laden, weigh 'd the necks 
Of dragons clinging to the crazy walls, 
Thicker than drops from thunder, showers of flowers 
Fell as we past ; and men and boys astride 
On wyvern, lion, dragon, griffin, swan, 350 

At all the corners, named us each by name, 
Calling ' ' God speed ! ' ' but in the ways below 
The knights and ladies wept, and rich and poor 
Wept, and the King himself could hardly speak 
For grief, and all in middle street the Queen, 
Who rode by Lancelot, wail'd and shriek 'd aloud, 
"This madness has come on us for our sins." 
So to the Gate of the three Queens we came, 
Where Arthur's wars are render 'd mystically, 
And thence departed every one his way. ^ 360 



*And I was lifted up in heart, and thought 
Of all my late-shown prowess in the lists. 



350. wyvern: a two-legged dragon with wings. 
357. A reminder of the main theme of the Idylls. 



124 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

How my strong lance had beaten down the knights, 
So many and famous names ; and never yet 
Had heaven appear 'd so blue, nor earth so green, 
For all my blood danced in me, and I knew 
That I should light upon the Holy Grail. 

* Thereafter, the dark warning of our King, 
That most of us would follow wandering fires, 
370 Came like a driving gloom across my mind. 

Then every evil word I had spoken once. 
And every evil thought I had thought of old, 
And every evil deed I ever did. 
Awoke and cried, ''This Quest is not for thee." 
And lifting up mine eyes, I found myself 
Alone, and in a land of sand and thorns, 
And I was thirsty even unto death; 
And I, too, cried, ' ' This Quest is not for thee. ' * 

*And on I rode, and when I thought my thirst 
380 Would slay me, saw deep lawns, and then a brook, 

With one sharp rapid, where the crisping white 
Play'd ever back upon the sloping wave. 
And took both ear and eye ; and o 'er the brook 
Were apple-trees, and apples by the brook 
Fallen, and on the lawns. * ' I will rest here, ' ' 
I said, ' ' I am not worthy of the Quest ; ' ' 
But even while I drank the brook, and ate 
The goodly apples, all these things at once 
Fell into dust, and I was left alone, 
390 And thirsting, in a land of sand and thorns. 

'And then behold a woman at a door 
Spinning ; and fair the house whereby she sat, 
And kind the woman's eyes and innocent, 



THE HOLY GRAIL 125 

And all her bearing gracious; and she rose 

Opening her arms to meet me, as who should say, 

''Rest here;" but when I touch 'd her, lo! she, too, 

Fell into dust and nothing, and the house 

Became no better than a broken shed. 

And in it a dead babe ; and also this 

Fell into dust, and I was left alone. 400 

*And on I rode, and greater was my thirst. 
Then flash 'd a yellow gleam across the world. 
And where it smote the plowshare in the field. 
The plowman left his plowing, and fell down 
Before it ; where it glitter 'd on her pail. 
The milkmaid left her milking, and fell down 
Before it, and I knew not why, but thought 
* ' The sun is rising, ' * tho ' the sun had risen. 
Then was I ware of one that on me moved 
In golden armour with a crown of gold 410 

About a casque all jewels ; and his horse 
In golden armour jewell'd everywhere: 
And on the splendour came, flashing me blind ; 
And seem'd to me the Lord of all the world. 
Being so huge. But when I thought he meant 
To crush me, moving on me, lo! he, too, 
Open'd his arms to embrace me as he came, 
And up I went and touch 'd him, and he, too, 
Fell into dust, and I was left alone 
And wearying in a land of sand and thorns. 420 

* And I rode on and found a mighty hill, 
And on the top, a city wall'd: the spires 
Pricked with incredible pinnacles into heaven. 
And by the gateway stirr 'd a crowd ; and these 
Cried to me climbing, ' ' Welcome, Percivale I 



126 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

Thou mightiest and thou purest among men!^^ 
And glad was I and clomb, but found at top 
No man, nor any voice. And thence I past 
Far thro' a ruinous city, and I saw 
430 That man had once dwelt there ; but there I found 

Only one man of an exceeding age. 
"Where is that goodly company," said I, 
"That so cried out upon me?" and he had 
Scarce any voice to answer, and yet gasp 'd, 
* ' Whence and what art thou ? ' ' and even as he spoke 
Fell into dust, and disappeared, and I 
Was left alone once more, and cried in grief, 
"Lo, if I find the Holy Grail itself 
And touch it, it will crumble into dust." 

440 'And thence I dropt into a lowly vale. 

Low as the hill was high, and where the vale 
Was lowest, found a chapel, and thereby 
A holy hermit in a hermitage. 
To whom I told my phantoms, and he said : 

* "0 son, thou hast not true humility, 
The highest virtue, mother of them all ; 
For when the Lord of all things made Himself 
Naked of glory for His mortal change, 
' Take thou my robe, ' she said, * for all is thine, ' 
450 And all her form shone forth with sudden light 

So that the angels were amazed, and she 
Follow 'd Him down, and like a flying star 
Led on the gray-hair 'd wisdom of the east; 
But her thou hast not known : for what is this 
Thou thoughtest of thy prowess and thy sins? 
Thou hast not lost thyself to save thyself 



453. gray hair'd wisdom: the Magi. 



THE HOLY GRAIL 127 

As Galahad/' When the hermit made an end, 

In silver armour suddenly Galahad shone 

Before us, and against the chapel door 

Laid lance, and enter 'd, and we knelt in prayer. 460 

And there the hermit slaked my burning thirst, 

And at the sacring of the mass I saw 

The holy elements alone; but he, 

''Saw ye no more? I, Galahad, saw the Grail, 

The Holy Grail, descend upon the shrine : 

I saw the fiery face as of a child 

That smote itself into the bread, and went ; 

And hither am I come ; and never yet 

Hath what thy sister taught me first to see, 

This Holy Thing, fail'd from my side, nor come 470 

Cover 'd, but moving with me night and day. 

Fainter by day, but always in the night 

Blood-red, and sliding down the blacken 'd marsh 

Blood-red, and on the naked mountain top 

Blood-red, and in the sleeping mere below 

Blood-red. And in the strength of this I rode. 

Shattering all evil customs everywhere, 

And past thro' Pagan realms, and made them mine. 

And clash 'd with Pagan hordes, and bore them 

down. 
And broke thro ' all, and in the strength of this 480 

Come victor. But my time is hard at hand, 
And hence I go; and one will crown me king 
Far in the spiritual city; and come thou, too. 
For thou shalt see the vision when I go. " 

'While thus he spake, his eye, dwelling on mine. 
Drew me, with power upon me, till I grew 



463. sacring: consecration. 



128 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

One with him, to believe as he believed. 
Then, when the day began to wane, we went. 

'There rose a hill that none but man could climb, 
493 Scarr'd with a hundred wintry water-courses — 

Storm at the top, and when we gain'd it, storm 
Round us and death; for every moment glanced 
His silver arms and gloom 'd: so quick and thick 
The lightnings here and there to left and right 
Struck, till the dry old trunks about us, dead, 
Yea, rotten with a hundred years of death. 
Sprang into fire: and at the base we found 
On either hand, as far as eye could see, 
A great black swamp and of an evil smell, 
500 Part black, part whiten 'd with the bones of men, 

Not to be crost, save that some ancient king 
Had built a way, where, link 'd with many a bridge, 
A thousand piers ran into the great Sea. 
And Galahad fled along them bridge by bridge. 
And every bridge as quickly as he crost 
Sprang into fire and vanish 'd, tho' I yearn 'd 
To follow ; and thrice above him all the heavens 
Open'd and blazed with thunder such as seem'd 
Shoutings of all the sons of God: and first 
510 At once I saw him far on the great Sea, 

In silver-shining armour starry-clear; 
And 'er his head the Holy Vessel hung 
Clothed in white samite or a luminous cloud. 
And with exceeding swiftness ran the boat, 
If boat it were — I saw not whence it came. 
And when the heavens open'd and blazed again 
Roaring, I saw him like a silver star — 
And had he set the sail, or had the boat 
Become a living creature clad with wings ? 



THE HOLY GRAIL 129 

And o'er his head the Holy Vessel hung 520 

Redder than any rose, a joy to me, 

For now I knew the veil had been withdrawn. 

Then in a moment when they blazed again 

Opening, I saw the least of little stars 

Down on the waste and straight beyond the star 

I saw the spiritual city and all her spires 

And gateways in a glory like one pearl — 

No larger, tho ' the goal of all the saints — 

Strike from the sea ; and from the star there shot 

A rose-red sparkle to the city, and there 530 

Dwelt, and I knew it was the Holy Grail, 

Which never eyes on earth again shall see. 

Then fell the floods of heaven drowning the deep. 

And how my feet recrost the deathful ridge 

No memory in me lives ; but that I touch 'd 

The chapel-doors at dawn I know ; and thence 

Taking my war-horse from the holy man. 

Glad that no phantom vext me more, return 'd 

To whence I came, the gate of Arthur's wars.' '-^^^ 

'0 brother,' ask'd Ambrosius,— ' f or in sooth 540 

These ancient books — and they would win thee — 

teem. 
Only I find not there this Holy Grail, 
With miracles and marvels like to these, 
Not all unlike ; which of tentime I read, 
Who read but on my breviary with ease. 
Till my head swims ; and then go forth and pass 
Down to the little thorpe that lies so close. 



545. but: only. 

545. breviary: a book containing the prayers and offices for 
the canonical hours. 
547. thorpe: village. 



130 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

And almost plaster 'd like a martin's nest 
To these old walls — ^and mingle with our folk ; 
And knowing ever^^ honest face of theirs 
As well as ever shepherd knew his sheep, 
And every homely secret in their hearts, 
Delight myself with gossip and old wives. 
And ills and aches, and teethings, lyings-in, 
And mirthful sa^^gs, children of the place, 
That have no meaning half a league away : 
Or lulling random squabbles when they rise, 
Chafferings and chatterings at the market-cross, 
Rejoice, small man, in this small world of mine. 
Yea, even in their hens and in their eggs — 
O brother, saving this Sir Galahad, 
Came ye on none but phantoms in your quest, 
Xo man, no woman?' 

Then Sir Percivale : 
*A11 men. to one so bound by such a vow. 
And women were as phantoms. my brother, 
VThy wilt thou shame me to confess to thee 
How far I falter *d from my quest and vow? 
For after I had lain so many nights, 
A bedmate of the snail and eft and snake, 
In grass and burdock. I was changed to wan 
And meagre, and the %dsion had not come; 
And then I chanced upon a goodly town 
With one great dwelling in the middle of it ; 
Thither I made, and there was I disarmed 
By maidens each as fair as any flower: 
But when they led me into hall, behold, 



069. eft: a small lizard. 
574. disarm'd: unharnessed. 



THE HOLY GRAIL 131 

The Princess of that castle was the one, 

Brother, and that one only, who had ever 

'Made my heart leap ; for when I moved of old 

A slender page about her father's hall, 580 

And she a slender maiden, all my heart 

Went after her with longing : yet we twain 

Had never kiss'd a kiss, or vow'd a vow. 

And now I came upon her once again. 

And one had wedded her, and he was dead, 

And all his land and wealth and state were hers. 

And while I tarried, ever^^ day she set 

A banquet richer than the day before 

By me ; for all her longing and her will 

"Was toward me as of old; till one fair morn, 590 

I walking to and fro beside a stream 

That flash 'd across her orchard underneath 

Her castle-walls, she stole upon my walk. 

And calling me the greatest of all knights. 

Embraced me, and so kiss'd me the first time, 

And gave herself and all her wealth to me. 

Then I remember 'd Arthur's warning word, 

That most of us would follow wandering fires, 

And the Quest faded in my heart. Anon, 

The heads of all her people drew to me, 600 

With supplication both of knees and tongue : 

*'We have heard of thee: thou art our greatest 

knight. 
Our Lady says it. and we well believe: 
Wed thou our Lady, and rule over us, 
And thou shalt be as Arthur in our land." 
me, my brother ! but one night my vow 
Burnt me within, so that I rose and fled. 
But wail'd and wept, and hated mine own self, 
And ev'n the Holy Quest, and all but her; 



132 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

610 Then after I was join'd with Galahad 

Cared not for her, nor anything upon earth.' 

Then said the monk, ' Poor men, when yule is cold, 
Must be content to sit by little fires. 
And this am I, so that ye care for me 
Ever so little ; yea, and blest be Heaven 
That brought thee here to this poor house of ours 
Where all the brethren are so hard, to warm 
My cold heart with a friend : but the pity 
To find thine own first love once more — to hold, 

620 Hold her a wealthy bride within thine arms. 

Or all but hold, and then — cast her aside. 
Foregoing all her sweetness, like a weed. 
For we that want the warmth of double life, 
We that are plagued with dreams of something 

sweet 
Beyond all sweetness in a life so rich, — 
Ah, blessed Lord, I speak too earthly-wise, 
Seeing I never stray 'd beyond the cell, 
But live like an old badger in his earth, 
With earth about him everywhere, despite 

630 All fast and penance. Saw ye none beside, 

None of your knights f 

*Yea so,' said Percivale: 
'One night my pathway swerving east, I saw 
The pelican on the casque of our Sir Bors 
All in the middle of the rising moon: 
And toward him spurr'd, and hail'd him, and he 
me. 



612. yule: here means the hospitable and generous abundance 
of Christmas. 

614. this: content. 



THE HOLY GRAIL 133 

And each made joy of either; then he ask'd, 
''Where is he? hast thou seen him — Lancelot? — 

Once," 
Said good Sir Bors, "he dash'd across me — mad, 
And maddening what he rode : and when I cried, 
* Ridest thou then so hotly on a quest 640 

So holy,' Lancelot shouted, 'Stay me not! 
I have been the sluggard, and I ride apace, 
For now there is a lion in the way ! ' 
So vanish U" 

' Then Sir Bors had ridden on 
Softly, and sorrowing for our Lancelot, 
Because his former madness, once the talk 
And scandal of our table, had return 'd; 
For Lancelot's kith and kin so worship him 
That ill to him is ill to them ; to Bors 
Beyond the rest : he well had been content 65C 

Not to have seen, so Lancelot might have seen, 
The Holy Cup of healing ; and, indeed. 
Being so clouded with his grief and love. 
Small heart was his after the Holy Quest : 
If God would send the vision, well : if not. 
The Quest and he were in the hands of Heaven. 

* And then, with small adventure met, Sir Bors 
Rode to the lonest tract of all the realm, 
And found a people there among their crags. 
Our race and blood, a remnant that were left m 

Paynim amid their circles, and the stones 
They pitch up straight to heaven: and their wise 

men 
Were strong in that old magic which can trace 
The wandering of the stars, and scoff 'd at him 



134 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

And this high Quest as at a simple thing : 
Told him he follow 'd — almost Arthur's words — 
A mocking fire : ' * What other fire than he, 
Whereby the blood beats, and the blossom blows, 
And the sea rolls, and all the world is warm 'd ?' ' 
And when his answer chafed them, the rough crowd, 
Hearing he had a difference with their priests, 
Seized him, and bound and plunged him into a cell 
Of great piled stones; and lying bounden there 
In darkness thro' innumerable hours 
He heard the hollow-ringing heavens sweep 
Over him till by miracle — what else? — 
Heavy as it was, a great stone slipt and fell, 
Such as no wind could move : and thro ' the gap 
Glimmer 'd the streaming scud : then came a night 
Still as the day was loud ; and thro ' the gap 
The seven clear stars of Arthur's Table Round — 
For, brother, so one night, because they roll 
Thro ' such a round in heaven, we named the stars. 
Rejoicing in ourselves and in our King — 
And these like bright eyes of familiar friends, 
In on him shone : ' ' And then to me, to me, ' ' 
Said good Sir Bors, ' ' beyond all hopes of mine. 
Who scarce had pray'd or ask'd it for myself — 
Across the seven clear stars — grace to me — 
In colour like the fingers of a hand 
Before a burning taper, the sweet Grail 



665. simple: foolish. 

667. he: the sun. The Druids worshipped the sun as the 
only true fire. 

679. scud: clouds of ocean foam, driven by the wind. 

681. seven clear stars: cf. Gareth and Lynette, note to 1281. 
The constellation Bootes, of which the brightest star is Arcturus 
(Arthur), is here fancifully called the Table Round. 



THE HOLY GRAIL 135 

Glided and past, and close upon it peal'd 
A sharp quick thunder." Afterwards, a maid, 
Who kept our holy faith among her kin 
In secret, entering, loosed and let him go.' 

To whom the monk : ' And I remember now 
That pelican on the casque: Sir Bors it was 
Who spake so low and sadly at our board ; 
And mighty reverent at our grace was he : 
A square-set man and honest; and his eyes, 700 

An out-door sign of all the warmth within, 
Smiled with his lips — a smile beneath a cloud, 
But heaven had meant it for a sunny one : 
^Yj ay. Sir Bors, who else 1 But when ye reach 'd 
The city, found ye all your knights return 'd. 
Or was there sooth in Arthur's prophecy. 
Tell me, and what said each, and what the King 1 ' 

Then answer 'd Percivale : ' And that can I, 
Brother, and truly ; since the living words 
Of so great men as Lancelot and our King 710 

Pass not from door to door and out again. 
But sit within the house. 0, when we reach 'd 
The city, our horses stumbling as they trode 
On heaps of ruin, hornless unicorns. 
Crack 'd basilisks, and splinter 'd cockatrices. 
And shatter 'd talbots, which had left the stones 
Raw, that they fell from, brought us to the hall. 

* And there sat Arthur on the da'is-throne. 
And those that had gone out upon the Quest, 



706. sooth: truth. 

715. basilisks: serpents whose look was fabled to kill. 
7ir>. cockatrices: winged snakes in heraldry. 

716. talbots; dogs in heraldry. 



136 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

Wasted and worn, and but a tithe of them, 

And those that had not, stood before the King, 

"Who, when he saw me, rose, and bade me hail, 

Saying, '^A welfare in thine eye reproves 

Our fear of some disastrous chance for thee 

On hill, or plain, at sea, or flooding ford. 

So fierce a gale made havoc here of late 

Among the strange devices of our kings ; 

Yea, shook this newer, stronger hall of ours, 

And from the statue Merlin moulded for us 

Half -wrench 'd a golden wing; but now — the Quest, 

This vision — hast thou seen the Holy Cup, 

That Joseph brought of old to Glastonbury?" 



*So when I told him all thyself hast heard, 
Ambrosius, and my fresh but fixt resolve 
To pass away into the quiet life, 
He answer 'd not, but, sharply turning, ask'd 
Of Gawain, * ' Gawain, was this Quest for thee 1 ' * 

* "Nay, lord," said Gawain, ''not for such as I. 
Therefore I communed with a saintly man, 
740 Who made me sure the Quest was not for me ; 

For I was much awearied of the Quest : 
But found a silk pavilion in a field, 
And merry maidens in it ; and then this gale 
Tore my pavilion from the tenting-pin, 
And blew my merry maidens all about 
With all discomfort; yea, and but for this. 
My twelvemonth and a day were pleasant to me. ' ' 



720. tithe: a tenth: a small part. 
735. the quiet life: the monastery. 
738. Gawain: cf. note to 202. 



THE HOLY GRAIL 137 

*He ceased; and Arthur tiirn'd to whom at first 
He saw not, for Sir Bors, on entering, piish'd 
Athwart the throng to Lancelot, caught his hand, 750 
Held it, and there, half -hidden by him, stood, 
Until the King espied him, saying to him, 
**Hail, Bors! if ever loyal man and true 
Could see it, thou hast seen the Grail ; ' ' and Bors, 
** Ask me not, for I may not speak of it : 
I saw it ; " and the tears were in his eyes. 

'Then there remain 'd but Lancelot, for the rest 
Spake but of sundry perils in the storm ; 
Perhaps, like him of Cana in Holy Writ, 
Our Arthur kept his best until the last ; 760 

Thou, too, my Lancelot," ask'd the King, *'my 

friend. 
Our mightiest, hath this Quest avail'd for thee?" 

* * ' Our mightiest ! ' ' answer 'd Lancelot, with a 
groan ; 
*' King ! ' ' — and when he paused, methought I spied 
A dying fire of madness in his eyes — 
* ' King, my friend, if friend of thine I be, 
Happier are those that welter in their sin, 
Swine in the mud, that cannot see for slime, 
Slime of the ditch : but in me lived a sin 
So strange, of such a kind, that all of pure, 770 

Noble, and knightly in me twined and clung 
Kound that one sin, until the wholesome flower 
And poisonous grew together, each as each, 
Not to be pluck 'd asunder ; and when thy knights 
Sware, I sware with them only in the hope 
That could I touch or see the Holy Grail 



759. Cana: John 2: 10. 



138 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

They might be pluck 'd asunder. Then I spake 
To one most holy saint, who wept and said. 
That save they could be pluck 'd asunder, all 

780 My quest were but in vain ; to whom I vow 'd 

That I would work according as he will'd. 
And forth I went, and while I yearn 'd and strove 
To tear the twain asunder in my heart, 
My madness came upon me as of old. 
And whipt me into waste fields far away ; 
There was I beaten down by little men. 
Mean knights, to whom the moving of my sword 
And shadow of my spear had been enow 
To scare them from me once ; and then I came 

790 All' in my folly to the naked shore, 

Wide flats, where nothing but coarse grasses grew; 
But such a blast, my King, began to blow. 
So loud a blast along the shore and sea, 
Ye could not hear the waters for the blast, 
Tho' heapt in mounds and ridges all the sea 
Drove like a cataract, and all the sand 
Swept like a river, and the clouded heavens 
Were shaken with the motion and the sound. 
And blackening in the sea-foam sway'd a boat, 

800 Half -swallow 'd in it, anchor 'd with a chain ; 

And in my madness to myself I said, 
' I will embark and I will lose myself, 
And in the great sea wash away my sin. * 
I burst the chain, I sprang into the boat. 
Seven days I drove along the dreary deep. 
And with me drove the moon and all the stars ; 
And the wind fell, and on the seventh night 
I heard the shingle grinding in the surge. 



808. shingle: a beach of coarse stones. 



THE HOLY GRAIL 139 

And felt the boat shock earth, and looking up, 

Behold, the enchanted towers of Carbonek, 810 

A castle like a rock upon a rock, 

With chasm-like portals open to the sea, 

And steps that met the breaker ! there was none 

Stood near it but a lion on each side 

That kept the entry, and the moon was full. 

Then from the boat I leapt, and up the stairs. 

There drew my sword. With sudden-flaring manes 

Those two great beasts rose upright like a man, 

Each gript a shoulder, and I stood between ; 

And w^hen I would have smitten them, heard a voice, 820 

' Doubt not, go forward ; if thou doubt, the beasts 

Will tear thee piecemeal. ' Then with violence 

The sword was dash'd from out my hand, and fell. 

And up into the sounding hall I past ; 

But nothing in the sounding hall I saw, 

No bench nor table, painting on the wall 

Or shield of knight ; only the rounded moon 

Thro' the tall oriel on the rolling sea. 

But always in the quiet house I heard. 

Clear as a lark, high o 'er me as a lark, 830 

A sweet voice singing in the topmost tower 

To the eastward : up I climb 'd a thousand steps 

With pain : as in a dream I seem 'd to climb 

For ever: at the last I reach 'd a door, 

A light was in the crannies, and I heard, 

* Glory and joy and honour to our Lord 

And to the Holy Vessel of the Grail. ' 

Then in my madness I essay 'd the door; 

It gave ; and thro ' a stormy glare, a heat 

As from a seven-times-heated furnace, I, 840 



828. oriel: a jutting window. 



140 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

Blasted and burnt, and blinded as I was, 
With such a fierceness that I swoon 'd away — 
0, yet methought I saw the Holy Grail, 
All pall'd in crimson samite, and around 
Great angels, awful shapes, and wings and eyes. 
And but for all my madness and my sin, 
And then my swooning, I had sworn I saw 
That which I saw ; but what I saw was veil 'd 
..^^^ And cover 'd ; and this Quest was not for me. ' * 

' So speaking, and here ceasing, Lancelot left 
The hall long silent, till Sir Gawain — nay. 
Brother, I need not tell thee foolish words, — 
A reckless and irreverent knight was he, 
Now bolden'd by the silence of his King, — 
Well, I will tell thee : " King, my liege, ' ' he said, 
"Hath Gawain fail'd in any quest of thine? 
When have I stinted stroke in foughten field? 
But as for thine, my good friend Percivale, 
Thy holy nun and thou have driven men mad. 
Yea, made our mightiest madder than our least. 
But by mine eyes and by mine ears I swear, 
I will be deafer than the blue-eyed cat, 
And thrice as blind as any noonday owl, 
To holy virgins in their ecstasies, 
Henceforward. ' ' 

* ''Deafer,'^ said the blameless King, 
* * Gawain, and blinder unto holy things 
Hope not to make thyself by idle vows, 
Being too blind to have desire to see. 



857. stinted: withheld. 

862. blue-eyed cat: male Albino cats are often blue-eyed and 
are said to be deaf. 



THE HOLY GRAIL 141 

But if indeed there came a sign from heaven, 

Blessed are Bors, Lancelot and Percivale, 870 

For these have seen according to their sight. 

For every fiery prophet in old times, 

And all the sacred madness of the bard, 

When God made music thro ' them, could but speak 

His music by the framework and the chord ; 

And as ye saw it ye have spoken truth. 

* ''Nay — but thou errest, Lancelot: never yet 
Could all of true and noble in knight and man 
Twine round one sin, whatever it might be, 

With such a closeness, but apart there grew, 880 

Save that he were the swine thou spakest of. 
Some root of knighthood and pure nobleness ; 
Whereto see thou, that it may bear its flower. 

* ''And spake I not too truly, O my knights 1 
Was I too dark a prophet when I said 

To those who went upon the Holy Quest, 

That most of them would follow wandering fires, 

Lost in the quagmire? — lost to me and gone. 

And left me gazing at a barren board, 

And a lean Order — scarce return 'd a tithe — 890 

And out of those to whom the vision came 

My greatest hardly will believe he saw; 

Another hath beheld it afar off. 

And leaving human wrongs to right themselves. 

Cares but to pass into the silent life. 

And one hath had the vision face to face, 

And now his chair desires him here in vain, 

However they may crown him otherwhere. 



890. lean; few in number. 



142 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

* * ' And some among you held, that if the King 
900 Had seen the sight he would have sworn the vow : 

Not easily, seeing that the King must guard 
That which he rules, and is but as the hind 
To whom a space of land is given to plow. 
"Who may not wander from the allotted field 
Before his work be done; but, being done, 
Let visions of the night or of the day 
Come, as they will ; and many a time they come, 
Until this earth he walks on seems not earth. 
This light that strikes his eyeball is not light, 
910 This air that smites his forehead is not air 

But vision — yea, his very hand and foot — 
In moments when he feels he cannot die, 
And knows himself no vision to himself, 
Nor the high God a vision, nor that One 
Who rose again : ye have seen what ye have seen. ' * 

* So spake the King : I knew not all he meant. ' 



THE PASSING OF ARTHUR 

That story which the bold Sir Bedivere, 
First made and latest left of all the knights, 
Told, when the man was no more than a voice 
In the white winter of his age, to those 
With whom he dwelt, new faces, other minds. 

For on their march to westward, Bedivere, 
Who slowly paced among the slumbering host, 
Heard in his tent the moaninofs of the King^ : 



"■to*- 



* I found Him in the shining of the stars, 
I mark'd Him in the flowering of His fields, 10 

But in His ways with men I find Him not. 
I waged His wars, and now I pass and die. 
me ! for why is all around us here 
As if some lesser god had made the world. 
But had not force to shape it as he would, 
Till the High God behold it from beyond, 
And enter it, and make it beautiful? 
Or else as if the world were wholly fair, 
But that these eyes of men are dense and dim, 
And have not power to see it as it is: 20 

Perchance, because we see not to the close ; — 



5. other minds: a new generation. Cf. 397. 

6. westward: according to Malory, towards Salisbury; ac- 
cording to Geoffrey of Monmouth, towards the river Cambula in 
Cornwall. 

143 



144 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

For I, being simple, thought to work His will, 
And have but stricken with the sword in vain; 
And all whereon I lean'd in wife and friend 
Is traitor to my peace, and all my realm 
Reels back into the beast, and is no more. 
My God, thou hast forgotten me in my death : 
Nay — God my Christ — I pass but shall not die.' 

Then, ere that last weird battle in the west, 
30 There came on Arthur sleeping, Gawain kill'd 

In Lancelot's war, the ghost of Gawain blown 
Along a wandering wind, and past his ear 
Went shrilling, ' Hollow, hollow all delight ! 
Hail, King! to-morrow thou shalt pass away. 
Farewell! there is an isle of rest for thee. 
And I am blown along a wandering wind, 
And hollow, hollow, hollow all delight." 
And fainter onward, like wild birds that change 
Their season in the night and wail their way 
40 From cloud to cloud, down the long wind the dream 

Shrill 'd ; but in going mingled with dim cries 
Far in the moonlit haze among the hills, 
As of some lonely city sack'd by night, 
When all is lost, and wife and child with wail 
Pass to new lords; and Arthur woke and call'd, 
*Who spake? A dream. light upon the wind, 
Thine, Gawain, was the voice — are these dim cries 
Thine? or doth all that haunts the waste and wild 
Mourn, knowing it will go along with me?' 

50 This heard the bold Sir Bedivere and spake : 

*0 me, my King, let pass whatever will, 



24. wife and friend: Guinevere and Lancelot. 
26. the beast: savagery and sin. 
29. battle. Cf. note to 6. 



THE PASSING OF ARTHUR I45 

Elves, and the harmless glamour of the field; 

But in their stead thy name and glary cling 

To all high places like a golden cloud 

For ever : but as yet thou shalt not pass. 

Light was Gawain in life, and light in death 

Is Gawain, for the ghost is as the man; 

And care not thou for dreams from him, but rise — 

I hear the steps of Modred in the west, 

And with him many of thy people, and knights 60 

Once thine, whom thou hast loved, but grosser grown 

Than heathen, spitting at their vows and thee. 

Right well in heart they know thee for the King. 

Arise, go forth and conquer as of old. ' 

Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere: 
*Far other is this battle in the west 
Whereto we move, than when we strove in youth, 
And brake the petty kings, and fought with Rome, 
Or thrust the heathen from the Roman wall. 
And shook him thro' the north. Ill doom is mine 70 
To war against my people and my knights. 
The king who fights his people fights himself. 
And they my knights, who loved me once, the stroke 
That strikes them dead is as my death to me. 
Yet let us hence, and find or feel a way 
Thro ' this blind haze, which ever since I saw 
One lying in the dust at Almesbury, 
Hath folded in the passes of the world. ' 

Then rose the King and moved his host by night. 
And ever push'd Sir Llodred, league by league, 80 

Back to the sunset bound of Lyonesse — 
A land of old upheaven from the abyss 
By fire, to sink into the abyss again; 
Where fragments of forgotten peoples dwelt, 



146 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

And the long mountains ended in a coast 
Of ever-shifting sand, and far away 
The phantom circle of a moaning sea. 
There the pursuer could pursue no more, 
And he that fled no further fly the King; 

90 And there, that day when the great light of heaven 

Burn'd at his lowest in the rolling year. 
On the waste sand by the waste sea they closed. 
Nor ever yet had Arthur fought a fight 
Like this last, dim, weird battle of the west. 
A deathwhite mist slept over sand and sea : 
Whereof the chill, to him who breathed it, drew 
Down with his blood, till all his heart was cold 
With formless fear; and ev'n on Arthur fell 
Confusion, since he saw not whom he fought. 

100 For friend and foe were shadows in the mist. 

And friend slew friend not knowing whom he slew ; 

And some had visions out of golden youth. 

And some beheld the faces of old ghosts 

Look in upon the battle; and in the mist 

Was many a noble deed, many a base, 

And chance and craft and strength in single fights, 

And ever and anon with host to host 

Shocks, and the splintering spear, the hard mail 

hewn, 
Shield-breakings, and the clash of brands, the crash 

110 Of battleaxes on shatter 'd helms, and shrieks 

After the Christ, of those who falling down 
Look'd up for heaven, and only saw the mist; 
And shouts of heathen and the traitor knights. 
Oaths, insult, filth, and monstrous blasphemies. 
Sweat, writhings, anguish, labouring of the lungs 



87. phantom circle: dim sea-horizon. 

91. lowest; the season is approximately midwinter, 



THE PASSING OF ARTHUR 147 

In that close mist, and cryings for the light, 
Moans of the dying, and voices of the dead. 

Last, as by some one deathbed after wail 
Of suffering, silence follows, or thro' death 
Or deathlike swoon, thus over all that shore, 120 

Save for some whisper of the seething seas, 
A dead hush fell ; but when the dolorous day 
Grew drearier toward twilight falling, came 
A bitter wind, clear from the North, and blew 
The mist aside, and with that wind the tide 
Rose, and the pale King glanced across the field 
Of battle : but no man was moving there ; 
Nor any cry of Christian heard thereon, 
Nor yet of heathen; only the wan wave 
Brake in among dead faces, to and fro 130 

Swaying the helpless hands, and up and down 
Tumbling the hollow helmets of the fallen, 
And shiver 'd brands that once had fought with 

Rome, 
And rolling far along the gloomy shores 
The voice of days of old and days to be. 

Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere, 
And whiter than the mist that all day long 
Had held the field of battle was the King : 

'Hearest thou this great voice that shakes the 
world. 
And wastes the narrow realm w^hereon we move, 140 
And beats upon the faces of the dead, 
My dead, as tho ' they had not died for me ? — 
Bedivere, for on my heart hath fall'n 



139. voice: the roar of the ocean. 



148 IDYLLS OF THE KIKG 

Confusion, till I know not what I am, 
Nor whence I am, nor whether I be King, 
Behold, I seem but King among the dead/ 

Then spake the bold Sir Bedivere: 'My King, 
King everywhere! and so the dead have kings, 
Tliere also Avill I worship thee as King. 
150 Yet still thy life is whole, and still I live 

Who love thee ; but who hates thee, he that brought 
The heathen back among us, yonder stands, 
Modred unharm'd, the traitor of thine house.* 

Then spake the King: 'My house hath been my 
doom. 
But call not thou this traitor of my house 
Who hath but dwelt beneath one roof with me. 
My house are rather they who sware my vows, 
Yea, even while they brake them, own'd me King. 
And well for thee, saying in my dark hour, 
160 When all the purport of my throne hath fail'd, 

That quick or dead thou boldest me for King. 
King am I, whatsoever be their cry ; 
And one last act of kinghood shalt thou see 
Yet, ere I pass. ' And uttering this the King 
Made at the man : then IModred smote his liege 
Hard on that helm which many a heathen sword 
Had beaten thin; while Arthur at one blow, 
Striking the last stroke with Excalibur, 
Slew him, and all but slain himself, he fell. 

170 So all day long the noise of battle roll'd 

Among the mountains by the winter sea; 
Until King Arthur's Table, man by man, 
Had fall'n in Lyonesse about their lord,. 
King Arthur. Then, because his wound was deep, 



THE PASSING OF ARTHUK 149 

The bold Sir Bedivere uplifted him, 

And bore him to a chapel nigh the field, 

A broken chancel with a broken cross. 

That stood on a dark strait of barren land : 

On one side lay the Ocean, and on one 

Lay a great water, and the moon was full. 180 

Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere : 
'The sequel of to-day unsolders all 
The goodliest fellowship of famous knights 
Whereof this world holds record. Such a sleep 
They sleep— the men I loved. I think that we 
Shall never more, at any future time. 
Delight our souls with talk of knightly deeds. 
Walking about the gardens and the halls 
Of Camelot, as in the days that were. 
I perish by this people which I made,— ^ 190 

The' Merlin sware that I should come again 
To rule once more ; but, let what will be, be, 
I am so deeply smitten thro ' the helm 
That without help I cannot last till morn. 
Thou therefore take my brand Excalibur, 
Which was my pride : for thou rememberest how 
In those old days, one summer noon, an arm 
Rose up from out the bosom of the lake. 
Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful. 
Holding the sword — and how I row'd across 200 

And took it, and have worn it, like a king ; 
And, wheresoever I am sung or told 
In aftertime, this also shall be known: 
But now delay not : take Excalibur, 
And fling him far into the middle mere : 
Watch what thou seest, and lightly bring me word,* 



206. lightly: on light foot; swiftly. 



150 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

To him replied the bold Sir Bedivere : 
'It is not meet, Sir King, to leave thee thus, 
Aidless, alone, and smitten thro' the helm — 
210 A little thing may harm a wounded man ; 

Yet I thy hest will all perform at full, 
Watch what I see, and lightly bring thee word.' 

So saying, from the ruin'd shrine he stept, 
And in the moon athwart the place of tombs, 
Yv^here lay the mighty bones of ancient men, 
Old knights, and over them the sea-wind sang 
Shrill, chill, with flakes of foam. He, stepping 

down 
By zigzag paths, and juts of pointed rock, 
Came on the shining levels of the lake. 

220 There drew he forth the brand Excalibur, 

And o'er him, drawing it, the winter moon. 
Brightening the skirts of a long cloud, ran forth 
And sparkled keen with frost against the hilt: 
For all the haft twinkled with diamond sparks, 
Myriads of topaz-lights, and jacinth- work 
Of subtlest jewellery. He gazed so long 
That both his eyes were dazzled as he stood, 
This way and that dividing the swift mind. 
In act to throw : but at the last it seem 'd 

230 Better to leave Excalibur conceal 'd 

There in the many-knotted waterflags. 

That whistled stiff and dry about the marge. 

So strode he back slow to the wounded King. 

Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere : 
* Hast thou perform 'd my mission which I gave ? 
What is it thou hast seen ? or what hast heard ? ' 



228. dividing the swift mind: i. e., in doubt. 



THE PASSING OF ARTHUR 151 

And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere: 
*I heard the ripple washing in the reeds, 
And the wild water lapping on the crag.' 

To whom replied King Arthur, faint and pale : 240 
*Thou hast betray 'd thy nature and thy name, 
Not rendering true answer, as beseem 'd 
Thy fealty, nor like a noble knight: 
For surer sign had follow 'd, either hand, 
Or voice, or else a motion of the mere. 
This is a shameful thing for men to lie. 
Yet now, I charge thee, quickly go again, 
As thou art lief and dear, and do the thing 
I bade thee, watch, and lightly bring me word. ' 

Then went Sir Bedivere the second time 250 

Across the ridge, and paced beside the mere, 
Counting the dewy pebbles, fix'd in thought; 
But when he saw the wonder of the hilt. 
How curiously and strangely chased, he smote 
His palms together, and he cried aloud: 

'And if indeed I cast the brand away, 
Surely a precious thing, one worthy note. 
Should thus be lost for ever from the earth, 
Which might have pleased the eyes of many men. 
What good should follow this, if this were done ? 2G0 
What harm, undone? Deep harm to disobey. 
Seeing obedience is the bond of rule. 
Were it well to obey then, if a king demand 
An act unprofitable, against himself? 
The King is sick, and knows not what he does. 
What record, or what relic of my lord 
Should be to aftertime, but empty breath 
And rumors of a doubt? But were this kept, 



152 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

Stored in some treasure-house of mighty kings, 
270 Some one might show it at a joust of arms, 

Saying, ''King Arthur's sword, Excalibur, 
Wrought by the lonely maiden of the Lake. 
Nine years she wrought it, sitting in the deeps 
Upon the hidden bases of the hills." 
So might some old man speak in the aftertime 
To all the people, winning reverence. 
But now much honour and much fame were lost.' 

So spake he, clouded with his own conceit, 
And hid Excalibur the second time, 
280 And so strode back slow to the wounded King. 

Then spoke King Arthur, breathing heavily: 
*What is it thou hast seen? or what ha.st heard?' 

And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere : 
*I heard the water lapping on the crag. 
And the long ripple washing in the reeds.' 

To whom replied King Arthur, much in wrath: 
*Ah, miserable and unkind, untrue, 
Unknightly, traitor-hearted! Woe is me! 
Authority forgets a dying king, 
290 Laid widow 'd of the power in his eye 

That bow'd the will. I see thee what thou art, 

For thou, the latest-left of all my knights, 

In whom should meet the offices of all. 

Thou wouldst betray me for the precious hilt; 

Either from lust of gold, or like a girl 

Valuing the giddy pleasure of the eyes. 

Yet, for a man may fail in duty twice, 

And the third time may prosper, get thee hence: 



278. conceit: in its sense of conception; thought. 



THE PASSING OF ARTHUR 153 

But, if thou spare to fling Excalibur, 

I will arise and slay thee with my hands.' 300 

Then quickly rose Sir Bedivere, and ran, 
And, leaping down the ridges lightly, plunged 
Among the bulrush beds, and clutch 'd the sword, 
And strongly wheel 'd and threw it. The great 

brand 
Made lightnings in the splendour of the moon, 
And flashing round and round, and whirl 'd in an 

arch. 
Shot like a streamer of the northern morn, 
Seen where the moving isles of winter shock 
By night, with noises of the Northern Sea. 
So flash 'd and fell the brand Excalibur: 310 

But ere he dipt the surface, rose an arm 
Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful, 
And caught him by the hilt, and brandish 'd him 
Three times, and drew him under in the mere. 
And lightly went the other to the King. 

Then spoke King Arthur, dra\Wng thicker breath : 
* Now see I by tliine eyes that this is done. 
Speak out: what is it thou hast heard, or seen?' 

And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere : 
'Sir King, I closed mine eyelids, lest the gems 320 

Should blind my purpose, for I never saw, 
Nor shall see, here or elsewhere, till I die, 
Not tho' I live three lives of mortal men, 
So great a miracle as yonder hilt. 
Then with both hands I flung him, wheeling him; 
But when I look'd again, behold an arm, 



307. streamer: Aurora Borealis, 

308. moving isles of winter: icebergs. 



154 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful, 
That caught him by the hilt, and brandish 'd him 
Three times, and drew him under in the mere.' 

330 And answer made King Arthur, breathing hard: 

* My end draws nigh ; 'tis time that I were gone. 
Make broad thy shoulders to receive my weight, 
And bear me to the margin; yet I fear 
My wound hath taken cold, and I shall die.' 

So saying, from the pavement he half rose, 
Slowly, with pain, reclining on his a^m, 
And looking wistfully with wide blue eyes 
As in a picture. Him Sir Bedivere 
Kemorsefully regarded thro' his tears, 
340 And would have spoken, but he found not words ; 

Then took with care, and kneeling on one knee, 
O'er both his shoulders drew the languid hands, 
And rising bore him thro' the place of tombs. 

But, as he walk'd. King Arthur panted hard, 
Like one that feels a nightmare on his bed 
When all the house is mute. So sigh'd the King, 
Muttering and murmuring at his ear, ' Quick, quick ! 
I fear it is too late, and I shall die.' 
But the other swiftly strode from ridge to ridge, 
350 Clothed with his breath, and looking, as he walk'd. 

Larger than human on the frozen hills. 
He heard the deep behind him, and a cry 
Before. His own thought drove him like a goad. 
Dry clash 'd his harness in the icy caves 
And barren chasms, and all to left and right 
The bare black cliff clang 'd round him, as he based 



350. clothed with his breath: i. e., with frosty mist from his 
breathing. 



THE PASSING OF AETHUK 155 

His feet on juts of slippery crag that rang 

Sharp-smitten with the dint of armed heels — 

And on a sudden, lo! the level lake, 

And the long glories of the winter moon. 360 

Then saw they how there hove a dusky barge, 
Dark as a funeral scarf from stem to stern, 
Beneath them; and descending they were ware 
That all the decks were dense with stately forms, 
Black-stoled, black-hooded, like a dream — by these 
Three Queens with crowns of gold : and from them 

rose 
A cry that shiver 'd to the tingling stars, 
And, as it were one voice, an agony 
Of lamentation, like a wind that shrills 
All night in a waste land, w^here no one comes, 370 

Or hath come, since the making of the world. 

Then murmur 'd Arthur, ' Place me in the barge. ' 
So to the barge they came. There those three 

Queens 
Put forth their hands, and took the King, and wept. 
But she, that rose the tallest of them all 
And fairest, laid his head upon her lap. 
And loosed the shatter 'd casque, and chafed his 

hands. 
And call'd him by his name, complaining loud, 
And dropping bitter tears against a brow 
Striped with dark blood : for all his face was white 380 
And colourless, and like the wither 'd moon 
Smote by the fresh beam of the springing east ; 
And all his greaves and cuisses dash 'd with drops 
Of onset; and the light and lustrous curls — 
That made his forehead like a rising sun 
High from the dais-throne — were parch 'd with dust ; 



156 IDYLLS OF THE KIXG 

Or clotted into points and hanging loose, 

Mix'd with the knightly growth that fringed his 

lips. 
So like a shatter 'd column lay the King; 
390 Not like that Arthur who, with lance in rest, 

From spur to plume a star of tournament, 
Shot thro' the lists at Camelot, and charged 
Before the eyes of ladies and of kings. 

Then loudly cried the bold Sir Bedivere: 
* Ah ! my Lord Arthur, whither shall I go ? 
Where shall I hide my forehead and my eyes ? 
For now I see the true old times are dead, 
When every morning brought a noble chance, 
And every chance brought out a noble knight. 
400 Such times have been not since the light that led 

The holy Elders with the gift of myrrh. 
But now the whole Round Table is dissolved 
Which was an image of the mighty world, 
And I, the last, go forth companionless. 
And the days darken round me, and the years, 
Among new men, strange faces, other minds. ' 

And slowly answer 'd Arthur from the barge: 
'The old order changeth, yielding place to new, 
And God fulfils himself in many ways, 
410 Lest one good custom should corrupt the world. 

Comfort thyself: what comfort is in me? 
I have lived my life, and that which I have done 
May He within himself make pure! but thou, 
If thou shouldst never see my face again, 
Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by 

prayer 
Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy 

voice 



THE PASSING OF ARTHUR 157 

Rise like a fountain for me night and day. 

For what are men better than sheep or goats • 

That nourish a blind life within the brain, 

If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer 420 

Both for themselves and those who call them friend 1 

For so the whole round earth is every way 

Bound by gold chains about the feet of God. 

But now farewell. I am going a long way 

With these thou seest — if indeed I go 

(For all my mind is clouded with a doubt) — 

To the island-valley of Avilion ; 

Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow. 

Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies 

Deep-meadow 'd, happy, fair with orchard lawns 430 

And bowery hollows crown 'd with summer sea, 

Where I will heal me of my grievous wound.' 

So said he, and the barge with oar and sail 
Moved from the brink, like some full-breasted swan 
That, fluting a wild carol ere her death. 
Ruffles her pure cold plume, and takes the flood 
With swarthy webs. Long stood Sir Bedivere 
Revolving many memories, till the hull 
Look'd one black dot against the verge of dawn, 
And on the mere the wailing died away. 440 

But when that moan had past for evermore, 
The stillness of the dead world's winter dawn 
Amazed him, and he groan 'd, 'The King is gone.' 
And therewithal came on him the weird rhyme, 
' From the great deep to the great deep he goes. * 



430. orchard lawns. The word " Avihon " means "isle of 
apples." 

6 



158 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

Whereat he slowly turn'd and slowly clomb 
• The last hard footstep of that iron crag ; 

Thence mark 'd the black hull moving yet, and cried, 
'He passes to be King among the dead, 
450 And after healing of his grievous wound 

He comes again ; but — if he come no more — 
O me, be yon dark Queens in yon black boat, 
Who shriek 'd and wail'd, the three whereat we 

gazed 
On that high day, when, clothed with living light, 
They stood before his throne in silence, friends 
Of Arthur, who should help him at his need ? ' 

Then from the dawn it seem'd there came, but 
faint 
As from beyond the limit of the world, 
Like the last echo born of a great cry, 
460 Sounds, as if some fair city were one voice 

Around a king returning from his wars. 

Thereat once more he moved about, and clomb 
Ev'n to the highest he could climb, and saw. 
Straining his eyes beneath an arch of hand. 
Or thought he saw, the speck that bare the King, 
Down that long water opening on the deep 
Somewhere far off, pass on and on, and go 
From less to less and vanish into light. 
And the new sun rose bringing the new year. 



NOTES 

THE COMING OF AETHUR 
Section I (lines 1-60) 

This section indicates the condition of Britain just before 
Arthur's coming. 

1. Leodogran: one of the petty British kings referred to in 
lines 5-8; mentioned by Malory I, 16. The location of Cameliard 
(pronounced CSm-el-yard) is in dispute. The traditional view lo- 
cates it in Wales; a later view locates it in Scotland (Skene: 
Four Ancient Books of Wales I, 51-58). Malory (i. 15-16) 
speaks of it as a six days' journey from Bedegraine, one of the 
castles of Sherwood Forest, which would favor the northern 
location. 

5. ere Arthur came: Arthur is assigned to the late fifth and 
early sixth centuries. His coming is in troublous times, about 
a century after the Romans had abandoned Britain, when numer- 
ous petty sovereigns were trying to establish their warring rule. 
It was about half a century after the first coming of the heathen 
Saxon host, 449 a.d. 

13. Aurelius: of Roman descent. According to Nennius 
(chapter iv), he disputed the rule of the chief of the Welsh 
sovereigns, who was at the time also beset by the Scots, the 
Irish, and the Picts, wilder British tribes. It was for the 
purpose of helping to repel these that the Saxon " sea-wolves," 
"heathen," were invited to land, in 449 a.d. (Green: A Short 
History of the English People, 44). Aurelius is called "Aurelius 
Emrys " in Gareth and Lynette. He ruled, under the Emperor 
Honorius, in Britain, Gaul, and Spain. 

14. King Uther: Arthur's predecessor. According to Malory 
(I, 1-4, 19) Uther was Arthur's father; but Tennyson prefers to 
leave Arthur's birth a mystery. 

159 



160 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

16. for a space: a hint of the ultimate failure of Arthur. 

17. Table Round: According to Malory (III, 1-4, 15; IV, 
4-5; XIII, 4) Merlin had made a table, round like the world 
( as thought of in Malory's time ) , for King Uther, to accom- 
modate 150 kniglits. According to Layamon's Brut (lines 
22,873-22,943), the table was made round because the knights 
had formerly fought so fiercely for first place at table that many 
were wounded and some slain. Uther gave the table to Leodogran, 
who in turn gave it to Arthur as a wedding present, together 
with the hundred good knights whom Leodogran had found worthy 
to sit about it. Arthur in time completes the full tale of worthy 
knights. One seat, however, " Siege Perilous," is left vacant 
until the perfectly pure knight, the one destined to achieve the 
Grail, shall come. He proves to be Sir Galahad. Tennyson pur- 
posely omits these stories and makes Arthur the founder of an 
Order of the Round Table, a Christian fellowship 

" That was to be, for love of God and men 
And noble deeds, the flower of all the world." 

— Merlin and Vivien, 480. 

Tennyson makes Arthur declare 

" But I was first of all the kings who drew 
The knighthood-errant of the realm and all 
The realms together under me their Head, 
In that fair Order of my Table Round, 
A glorious company, the flower of men, 
To serve as model for the mighty world. 
And be the fair beginning of a time." 

— Guinevere, 457-463. 

20-40. Of course this passage may be understood literally. 
It well describes actual conditions in Britain after the Romans 
left. But it may also be understood to symbolize the reign of 
moral evil in a world, or an individual heart, that is without 
good ideals. As Hazlitt remarked, " The allegory won't bite," 
and one who wishes to may resist seeing it, and may look only 
for pictures and music. 

34. Roman legions: The legions were withdrawn from Britain 
in the year 401. The Emperor Honorius released the Britons 
from allegiance to Rome in 410. The chiefs of Britain, in 446, 



NOTES 161 

joined in a piteous letter to Rome, begging that the legions might 
return to defend them from the wild tribes of the north : " To 
iEtius, consul for the third time — the groans of the Britons." 
Rome complied, and saved the country; but it was a last effort. 
From that date Rome left Britain to shift for itself. 

36. Urien: a famous king of the north Britons (the land of 
Gore) whose brother, Llew, according to Welsh genealogies, mar- 
ried Anna, a sister of Arthur, thus uniting the kings of north 
Britain with Arthur. According to Malory (I, 2) Urien married 
Arthur's sister, Morgan le Fay, a wicked enchantress, who later 
sought both Arthur's and Urien's life (II, 12). Urien joined in 
the Baron's war upon Arthur, but finally (IV, 4) became a 
knight of the Round Table. 

Section II (lines 62-73; 94-133) 

This section describes the Barons' war, in which Arthur sub- 
dued the petty sovereigns of Britain who had united against his 
overlordship. (Malory I, 10-15; II, 10-11). The victory was 
not lasting. 

72-73. Gorlois, Anton: Cf. lines 169, 170, 185-193, 196, 220, 
221. 

95. field-of -battle bright: This battle is in contrast with the 
last dim-weird battle of the West, described in TJie Passiny of 
Arthur, lines 94-138. 

110. The kings: Malory (I, 10) names eleven kings, includ- 
ing Idres of Cornwall and Nentres of Garlot. 

111. Carados: of Scotland (Malory XIX, 12). 

112. Claudias: of France (Malory XI, 6). 

133. I trust thee to the death: Lancelot's subsequent guilty 
relations with Arthur's queen make these words highly sig- 
nificant. 

Section III (lines 134-445) 

This section gives the stories of Arthur's birth. (Malory I, 
1, 2, 3, 19.) 

First (lines 140-160) : amid the confused babel of public 
opinion, the hoary chamberlain futilely refers the whole question 
to an inaccessible authority. Second (lines 180-236): the loyal 



162 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

but unimaginative Bevidere gives a plain matter-of-fact version, 
untouched by mystery. Third (lines 253-424) : Bellicent's ac- 
count emphasizes the very elements of the story that are insig- 
nificant to practical-minded Bedivere — the spirituality of Arthur, 
the divine influences emanating from him and surrounding him, 
the wonders attending his birth and coronation, and her own 
intuition of his divinity. Finally (lines 425-445) : Leodogran's 
dream, wholly removed from the world of matter of fact and 
wholly in the world of shadows, is entirely convincing to him. 
Leodogran receives belief and a pure faith in Arthur by tran- 
scending ordinary demonstrable proofs. 

150. Merlin: The great magician of King Arthur is intellect 
in the service of the highest spiritual ideals. He protects Arthur's 
childhood and youth, procures his coronation, is his best coun- 
selor, makes his armor, prophesies and works miracles for him, 
builds his haven, ships, halls, and palaces, making them " spire 
to heaven." Cf. Merlin and Vivien, 165, 672; The Holy Grail, 
225; Gareth and Lynette, 302; The Coming of Arthur, 280. 

152. Bleys: a holy hermit who had taught Merlin, and who, 
when old, wrote at Merlin's dictation the account of Arthur's 
battles. 

172. "Ay": Monosyllabic answers were characteristic of 
Ulfius and Brastias (Malory I, 12), blunt fighting men of un- 
thinking loyalty. Their " ay " seems to them to be sufficient 
answer. They had served Arthur's predecessor, Uther, and had 
been Arthur's bodyguard in the dangerous days before his corona- 
tion. (Malory I, 4.) 

173. Bedivere: Tennyson mentions Bedivere only in the 
Coming of Arthur and the Passing of Arthur. In Malory, 
Bedivere fights for Arthur in several battles, and after Arthur's 
passing, finds Arthur's grave, attends Lancelot to a hermitage, 
and himself ends his days as a holy hermit. 

186. Tintagil: The site of Tintagil is still pointed out on the 
Cornish coast. 

They found a naked child upon the sands 
Of dark Tintagil by the Cornish sea; 
And that was Arthur. 

— Guinevere, 291-293. 

208. The New Year: Arthur brings in a new era. 



NOTES 163 

261. strait vows: In Guinevere, 464-474, Arthur gives the 
substance of the vows which he required of each of his knights: 

" I made them lay their hands in mine and swear 
To reverence the King as if he were 
Their conscience, and their conscience as their King, 
To break the heathen and uphold the Christ, 
To ride abroad redressing human wrongs. 
To speak no slander, no, nor listen to it. 
To honor his own word as if his God's, 
To lead sweet lives in purest chastity. 
To love one maiden only, cleave to her. 
And worship her by years of noble deeds. 
Until they won her." 

The vows were " strait " because hard for a knight of that, 
or any other, age to fulfill. Yet they exalted those who took them. 

270. A momentary likeness, etc.: In the Holy Grail, 25- 
27, Ambrosius, the monk, says of the Knights of the Round Table, 
in the degenerate days long afterward, 

" For good ye are and bad, and like to coins. 
Some true, some light, but every one of you 
Stamp'd with the image of the King." 

275. three fair queens: According to Malory (XXI, 6), one 
was Arthur's sister. Queen Morgan le Fay; one, the Queen of 
Northgales; one. Queen of the Waste Lands. Tennyson leaves 
them nameless and mysterious. They have been thouglit to sym- 
bolize Faith, Hope and Love, but it is better to leave them vague 
and shadowy influences for good. 

279. Merlin. See note to 150. 

"... The most famous man of all those times 
Merlin, who knew the range of all their arts, 
Had built the king his havens, ships, and halls, 
Was also Bard and knew the starry heavens; 
The people call'd him Wizard." 

— Merlin and Vivien, 164-168. 

282. Lady of the Lake: Cf. Gareth and Lynette, 212; Lan- 
celot and Elaine, 1393-1401; The Passi^ig of Arthur, 271-274, 



164 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

310-314. She is thought to sjTnbolize religion, since she fur- 
nishes Arthur his sword of justice, takes it back again at his 
death (Passing of Arthur, 325-329), and receives Arthur at his 
passing. She " knows a subtler magic " than Merlin's, since 
religion is subtler or profounder than philosophy and science. 

294. Excalibur: According to Geoffrey of Monmouth and 
Layamon, Excalibur, the sword of justice, was wrought in Avilion 
by the Lady of the Lake (The Passing of Arthur, 271). It was 
enchanted. " For while ye have the scabbard upon you, ye shall 
lose no blood, be ye never so sore wounded " ( Malory I, 23 ) . 
With it Arthur accomplished wonders in his battles. The sign 
that Arthur is the destined King is that he alone can draw a 
huge sword (possibly Excalibur) from a great stone into which 
it is fixed. (Malory I, 3, 5.) 

298. elfin Urim: Cf. Exodus, XXVIII, 30; XXXIX, 8-14; 
Leviticus, VIII, 8. 

302. "Take me": Excalibur offers itself to the man of des- 
tiny who will fight for the ideal in the world. Such a man had 
always been wanted ; the words are " graven in the oldest tongue." 

304. "Cast me away": in the speech of Arthur's time, to 
indicate that Arthur must finally fail to establish the ideal in 
this world. Cf. The Passing of Arthur, 181-206. Sin cannot be 
extirpated because human nature is not adapted to reach the 
ideal which it sees clearly enough. 

317. Secret things: Tennyson makes Bellicent refrain from 
asserting any family relationship to Arthur. She is inclined to 
believe that Arthur is of divine origin (330-331 and 375-395). 
See the same story in Guinevere, 286flr. 

319. Gawain: Tennyson, in subsequent Idylls, develops 
Gawain's character in the direction of light-headedness, and de- 
ceitfulness, mixed with courtesy. In the oldest romances, how- 
ever, Gawain is a much solider character, is a man of great 
consequence, and next to Arthur himself in famous deeds. 

322. Modred: like his father, a traitor to Arthur. (Cf. The 
Passing of Arthur, 153, 165.) 

338-357. Bellicent speaks of her own childhood; and therein 
lies the beauty of the passage. 

375. decks: Cf. the brightness of this picture with the black- 
ness of the funeral-barge in The Passiyig of Arthur ^ 361-371. 

401. riddling triplets: In his office as Bard, Merlin answers 



NOTES 165 

in the customary riddling triplets, requiring interpretation, since 
a double meaning is intended. The first triplet means that the 
story of Bleys, whether fact or not, does not give the final truth. 
The second triplet means that there may be many versions of the 
same truth, many different answers to the questions as to whence 
we come, whither we go. What is birth? What is death? What 
is life? What is right, what is wrong, who is Arthur, what is 
truth itself? There is no one clear, infallible answer. The third 
triplet means that Arthur's birth and death, like all birth and 
death, is a profound mystery, as is life itself. 

420-424. The belief in a second coming is found in the legends 
of Charlemagne, Barbarossa, and other heroes. Cf. The Passing 
of Arthur, 450-451. Malory XXI, 7, says: "Yet some men yet 
say in many parts of England that King Arthur is not dead, 
but had by the will of our Lord Jesu in another place. And men 
say that he shall come again, and he shall win the holy cross. 
I will not say it shall be so, but rather I will say, here in this 
world he changed his life. But many men say that there is 
written upon his tomb this verse: Hie jacet Arthurus Rex quon- 
dam Rexque futurus." 

Section IV (lines 449-519) 

This section tells of the marriage of Arthur and introduces 
the battle-lyric. 

449-455. Tennyson's poem, Lancelot and Queen Guinevere, 
gives the full version of this incident. In Malory ( III, 1 ) , it is 
Merlin that conducts Guinevere to Arthur, and (III, 5) the mar- 
riage takes place at Camelot, in the Church of Saint Stephen's. 

452. Dubric: or Dubritius, archbishop of Caerleon-upon-Ubk 
and primate of Britain. 

459-461. May: The season, redolent of spring blossoms, 
matches the purity of purpose in the newly founded order of the 
Round Table, when the knights gloried in their vows and in 
Arthur. 

481-501. This triumphant battle lyric achieves perfection in 
the satisfying union of sound, image, and meaning. 

503. Lords from Rome: Malory's fifth book is devoted to 
Arthur's mythical career as a world conqueror. He is finally 
crowned by the Pope at Rome as a result of his great deeds. 



166 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

508. Cf. The Passing of Arthur, 408. 

511. Roman wall: Agricola established military stations be- 
tween the Firth of Forth and the Clyde (about forty miles). In 
the reign of Antoninus Pius, this line of stations was fortified 
by a turf rampart on foundations of stone, Hadrian caused to 
be built a rampart of earth between Newcastle and Carlisle, and 
Septimius Severus had a stone wall built parallel to Hadrian's 
rampart. Traces of the walls may still be seen. 

517. twelve great battles: Cf. Lancelot and Elaine, 281-309. 



GARETH AND LYNETTE 

Section I (lines 1-320) 

Gareth is introduced, his life at home is described, and he is 
brought to the enchanted city of Camelot. The story is told in 
Malory's Le Morte iV Arthur, book vii. 

1. Lot and Bellicent: Cf. The Coming of Arthur, 115 and note, 
242-244; 309-335, and note to 317. 

2. spring: The time of year suits an idyll of youth. 

21-25. Gareth here declares the true ambition of knight- 
hood. Cf. The Coming of Arthur, note to 261. 

25. Gawain: Cf. The Coming of Arthur, note to 319. 

26. Modred: Cf. The Coming of Arthur, note to 322. 

40. goose and golden eggs: Cf. Tennyson's poem The Goose. 

66. Excalibur: Cf. The Coming of Arthur, 294-303, and note 
to 294. 

76. Barons' War: Cf. The Coming of Arthur, 61-116. 
116-117. follow the Christ: Cf. The Coming of Arthur, note 
to 261. j 

119-129. Cf. The Coming of Arthur, 140-236. 

133. Rome: Cf. The Coming of Arthur, 476-477, 503-513, 
and note to 5. 

135. Idolaters: Cf. The Coming of Arthur, 35-120, 514-518, 
and note to 13. 

185. Camelot: Allegorically, Camelot is the highest ideal of 
civilized life and social organization that man, at any time, has 
imagined. It has been variously conceived by the poets as " The 



NOTES 167 

City of Light," "The Celestial City," "The City of Justice," 
" The Golden City," " The City of God," " The City of Our Vision," 
"The Future's Citadel." 

202. Merlin: Cf. The Coming of Arthur, notes to 150 and 279. 

212. The Lady of the Lake: Cf. The Coming of Arthur, 282- 
293 and note. 

225. Three Queens: Cf. The Coming of Arthur, 275 and note; 
and The Passing of Arthur, 366, 372, 452. 

261. The King, etc.: The King is the soul, the only reality; 
the city is material civilization, ever changing and growing to- 
ward the ideal. It is "built to music" — i. e,, according to prin- 
ciples of harmony and spiritual beauty. It is " never built at 
all " in the ordinary sense of building, for it is spiritual growth. 

280. Riddling of the Bards: The Welsh Bards stated things 
so as to produce the effects named in lines 281-282. A specimen 
of their riddling is seen in The Coming of Arthur, 402-410. 

Section II (lines 310-514) 

The King, delivering justice to his people, takes Garetli into 
his service. 

322. Clear honor: Arthur's court is as yet ruled by the high- 
est ideals. 

327. Uther: Cf. The Coming of Arthur, note to 14. 

359. Sir Kay: the seneschal, manager of the royal household, 
fosterbrother of King Arthur, rough and surly, but trustworthy 
and, according to Malory (I, 4 ; IV, 4 ) , highly esteemed by 
Arthur. 

367. Aurelius Emrys: Cf. The Coming of Arthur, note to 13. 

376. Mark: In the first sixty lines of Merlin and Vivien, is 
shown the despicable character of Mark, 

" He that always bare in bitter grudge 
The slights of Arthur and his table." 

In The Last Tournament, Mark is shown to be a sneak: 

" Mark's way to steal behind one in the dark,'* 

and the murderer of Tristram, 

" Behind him rose a shadow and a shriek — 
* Mark's way,' said Mark, and clove him through the brain." 



168 IDYLLS OF THE KIXG 

386. Tristram: of Lvonesse, nephew of Mark, in love with 
Mark's wife, Isolt. In prowess, Tristram was second only to 
Lancelot. Malory's eighth, ninth, and tenth books are largely 
devoted to Tristram. 

451. Lancelot: Cf. The Coming of Arthur, 124-133 and notes. 
Malory's sixth, eleventh, and twelfth books are largely devoted to 
Lancelot. 

465. Fair-hands: " Beaumains," meaning fair-hands — is the 
nickname Kay gives Gareth in Malory (VII, 1). He is described 
as " well-visaged " and as having " the fairest and largest hand 
that ever man saw." Cf. 455-456. 

492. Avilion: Cf. The Passing of Arthur, 35, 430 and notes. 
The Ideal sjTnbolized in Arthur cannot die. 

Section III (lines 515-1394) 

Gareth is made a knight, is given a quest, and proves himself, 
in his adventures, a true knight of Arthur. The adventures are 
numerous, as befits an idyll of youth, and each symbolizes some 
phase of the spiritual conflict between the higher and lower nature 
in man. 

541. vows: Cf. The Coming of Arthur, note to 261. 

610. This Order: Cf. The Coming of Arthur, note to 17. 

618. fantasy: They are not really what they think them- 
selves, the rulers of the Day, human life. They are strong only 
because usually thought invincible. 

619. Morning-star: temptations of Youth. 
Noon-Sun: temptations of Manhood. 
Evening-star: temptations of Old Age. 

793. quieted: As befits an idyll of youth, there is no touch 
of tragedy ; no one is killed. 

873. Some ruth is mine for thee: the first sign of a change 
in Lynette's feeling towards Gareth. 

881. As hers who lay: an excusable hint of Gareth's real 
rank, by Gareth himself. 

969. A little faintlier: the second sign of change in Lynette's 
feelings towards Gareth, which she expresses better in song 
(074-976). 

993. Sir: an unintended mark of admiration, immediately 
withdrawn. 



NOTES 169 

1015. No room, etc.: The temptations of middle life require 
quick action if they are to be successfully resisted. 

1029. not a point: Lynette fibs here. Her real feelings are 
betrayed in the song (1034-1036, 1040-1042, 1049-1051), and in 
the unfinished line, 1039. 

1067. harden'd skins: evil old habits. Cf. 1100-1104. 

1112. never change again: Lynette is at last won. 

1130-1132. Lynette's song again best speaks her feelings. 

1168. This is the theme of the whole series of Idylls. 

1179. hermit's cave: religion. 

1281. Arthur's harp: Cf. The Last Tournament, 331-336. 

. . . Dost thou know the star 
We call the harp of Arthur up in heaven? 
.... when our King 
Was victor well nigh day by day, the Knights, 
Glorying in each new glory, set his name 
High on all hills, and in the signs of heaven. 

Arthur's " Hufe," or haunt, was the old British name for Arc- 
turus, constellation Bootes. 

1373. a blooming boy: This last conflict, with Death, at 
which all the world is terrified, turns out to be burlesque, and 
brings "the happier day from underground" (1386). 



LANCELOT AND ELAINE 

Section I (lines 1-396) 

Elaine and the shield of Lancelot, and how it came into her 
possession. 

1. Elaine: a Celtic form of Helen. The Idyll follows Malory's 
Le Morte d' Arthur, xviii, 8-20. Malory says that she was named 
Elaine le Blank ( the fair ) . There was another Elaine, daughter 
of Pelles and mother, by Lancelot, of Galahad. 

2. Astolat: Malory identifies Astolat with Guilford in Sur- 
rey. But Tennyson's Astolat must have been on the Thames 
below London. Cf. 1147. 

22. Caerlyle: Carlisle in Cumberland, possibly one of Arthur's 
capitals. 



170 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

23. CaBrleon: on the river Usk in South Wales, the place of 
one of Arthur's twelve great battles, and another of his capitals. 
Camelot. Cf. Gareth and Lynette, 185 and note. 

35. Lyonesse: fabled to be an extension of Cornwall to the 
south and west, now covered by the sea. 

46. diamonds: In The Last Tournament, 34-38, Arthur, 
speaking to Queen Guinevere, says: 

" . . . O my Queen, I muse 
Why ye not wear on arm, or neck, or zone. 
Those diamonds that I rescued from the tarn, 
And Lancelot won, methought, for thee to wear ? " 

And Guinevere says that they had proved a bitterness to 
her and had been lost: 

" Slid from my hands when I was leaning out 
Above the river " 

Cf. 1227 below, Malory says nothing about this story. 

65. The heathen: Cf. The Coming of Arthur, note to 13. 

144. Cf. The Coming of Arthur, 132, and note to 261. 

279. Badon hill: the twelfth of Arthur's battles in which 
(says Xennius) "nine hundred and forty fell by his hand alone, 
no one but the Lord affording him assistance"; identitied by 
some with Badbury Hill in Dorsetshire, and by others with 
Bowden Hill, near Linlithgow, Scotland. The date assigned to 
this battle is 520. (see Green: A Short History of the English 
People, chapter I, section ii.) 

287. Glem: Perhaps the river of that name in Lincolnshire 
is meant; possibly the Glem in Ayrshire. 

289. Duglas: probably the Douglas in Lancashire. 

Bassa: probably also in Lancashire. 

201. Celidan: probably in Cornwall. 

292. Castle Gumion: possibly Cser Gwen, in Stow. 

293. Our Lady's Head: In Spenser's Fairie Queen (I, vii), 
we read of Arthur: 

" Athwart his breast a bauldrick brave he ware. 
That shin'd, like twinkling stars, with stones most pretious rare. 
And in the midst thereof one pretious stone 
Of wondrous worth, and eke of wondrous might, 
Shaped like a Ladies head, exceeding shone." 



NOTES 171 

296. Caerleon: Cf. 23 and note. 

297. Cf. Guinevere, 15, 16: 

Lords of the White Horse, 

Heathen, the brood by Hengist left. 

" White Horse " is used for the Saxons themselves in The 
Holy Grail, 311, 312: 

*' Knights that in twelve great battles splash'd and dyed 
The strong White Horse in his own heathen blood." 

299. Agned-Cathregonion: a hill in Somersetshire; but, some 
think, Edinburgh. 

300. Trath Treroit: perhaps Sol way Firth. 

Section II (lines 397-522) 

The Wounding of Lancelot. 

422. Pendragon: a title usually employed in connection with 
King Uther, Arthur's predecessor and reputed father, who adopted 
a golden dragon as his emblem. The word means literally 
" dragon's head " and signifies "* chief war leader," or when re- 
ferring to Arthur, as here, " King of Kings." Cf. 432ff. and 525. 

Section III (lines 523-739) 

Gawain's Quest. 

555. Cf. The Coming of Arthur, 319, note. 
575. Lancelot told me: Is this true? Cf. 144ff. 
600ff. The queen's jealousy is kindled here. It finally finds 
expression in 1217fiF. 

Section IV (lines 740-898) 
Elaine's Quest and the Healing of Lancelot. 

795. strange-statued gate: Cf. Gareth and Lynctte, 209-233. 

838-845. Malory, who knew not chaperones, says, " So this 
maiden, Elaine, never went from Sir Lancelot, but watched him 
day and night, and did such attendance to him that the French 
book saith there was never woman did more kindlier for man 
than she." [Le Morte d' Arthur, xviii, 16.) 



172 IDYLLS OF THE laXG 

Sectio>- V (lines 899-981) 
The return to Astolat, and the parting of Lancelot and Elaine. 

Section VI (lines 982-1129) 
The Death of Elaine. 

998. The Song of Love and Death: Cf. Gareth and Lynette, 
974-976. 1034-1036, 1040-1042, 1049-1051, 1130-1132, and note 
similarity of form. In each stanza, the third line is of different 
length from the first and second, and carries a burden or refrain. 

1015. Phantom: Many families believe that they are given 
special warnings of an approaching death. In Ireland the Phan- 
tom that gives the warning is the "Banshee" (see Dictionary) 
or "The Shrieking Woman": in Scotland, the "water wraith"; 
in America, the "death watch." (See Dictionary.) 

Section VII (lines 1130-1418) 

Elaine's Last Quest. 

1130. Cf. 411. 

1134. Full summer: Cf. 788. 

1146. The dead, Oar'd by the dumb: probably the most 
impressive of all of Tennyson's effective images. 

1168. vibrate: indicating the Queen's emotion. 

1109. laughing: glad at this slight indication of the Queen's 
passion. 

121G. with Amen: indicating an end to their connection. 

1250. some do hold: Cf. The Coming of Arthur, 420, and 
Gareth and Lynette, 200. 

1256. Percivale: In The Holy Grail, 3, Percivale is the 
knight 

Wliom Arthur and his knighthood call'd The Pure. 
Percivale once sees the Grail, but only for a moment. 

1257. Galahad: the type of stainless purity. Cf. Tennyson's 
early lyric, .Sir Galahad. 

1319. that shrine: Although Westminster Abbey was not 
begun until 616, there was a more ancient Christian church on 
the same site. 



NOTES 173 

1375. Unbound as yet: King Arthur speaks with simple 
sincerity, not knowing the real relation existing between the 
Queen and Lancelot. His high-mindedness puts him out of reach 
of the gossip of the court. 

1393flF. Lancelot: Malory (III, 1) makes Merlin warn Arthur 
before his marriage with Guinevere, that Lancelot should love 
Guinevere and she him; in Vl, 1, Malory says that Lancelot 
surpassed all other knights, and that therefore the queen favored 
him, and that he loved the Queen. In XI, 3, ^lalory states it as 
generally known that Lancelot loved the Queen. Malory tells U3 
that Lancelot was the son of King Bans, of Benwicke (in France), 
and that the Lady of the Lake named him " Lancelot du Lak." 
The story Lancelot tells (1393tT. ) is from a Grerman poem trans- 
lated in the twelfth century from a French original now lost. 
Lancelot everywhere typifies chivalry as acted upon by the Chris- 
tian religion (The Lady of the Lake). At the same time 
he is beset by all the pagan temptations, the chief of which is 
earthly beauty (Guinevere). He is ashamed of his failure to 
live up to the ideal that his name represents. 

1418. a holy man: Towards the end of his life, Lancelot en- 
tered a hermitage and '' served God day and night with prayers 
and fastings." 



THE HOLY GRAIL 
Section I (lines 1-44) 

This section is Tennyson's introduction to the stories of the 
Grail. It is original in conception. The natural questions of 
Ambrosius lead at once to the recital of the legends. These are 
united by the device of a conversation between Sir Percivale, who 
had lived at court, had had great adventures, and had joined in 
the quest of the Holy Grail, and the simple-minded Ambrosius, 
who had lived all his life in the monastery, serving the village 
parish close by, and who knew little of the great world in which 
Percivale had moved. 

For Malory's story of the Holy Grail see Morte D'Arthur, 
Books Xm— X\1L 

2. Sir Percivale: Cf. Maloa-y xiv and ivii. 



174 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

3. Arthur: Cf. Introduction xxiii. 

7. not long after: "And as soon as he (Galahad) was buried, 
Sir Percivale yielded him to an hermitage out of the city, and 
took a religious clothing. . . . Thus a year and two months lived 
Sir Percivale in the hermitage, a full holy life, and then passed 
out of this world." Malory, xvii, 23. 

7. Camelot: Malory (11, 19) identifies Camelot with Win- 
chester. Caxton (preface to Malory) locates it in Wales. A re- 
cent authority declares that "Camel, near South Cadbury, Somer- 
set, is the place where the remains of the old city of Camelot are 
still to be found." Sommers, Morte D'Arthur II, 157. Cf. Gareth 
and Lynette, 185 and note, 26 and note. 

15. smoke: "There has been a great deal of smoke in the 
yew trees this year. One day there was such a cloud that it 
seemed to be a fire in the shrubbery." Lady Tennyson's Journal, 
April, 1868. "It was then that he wrote the speech of Ambrosius 
in The Holy Grail wdth the lines about the 'smoke'; that is, the 
pollen of the yew blown and scattered by the wind. ... He 
would say: 'I made most of The Holy Grail walking up and 
down my field, Maiden's Croft.' In Memoriam, sec. xxxix was 
also written at this time." Alfred, Lord Tennyson, A Memoir by 
his Son, II, iv, 53. Cf. also In Memoriam, sec. ii, and Words- 
worth's Yew Trees. 

27. image of the King: Cf. The Coming of Arthur, 270. 

28. Table Round: Cf. The Coming of Arthur, 17 and note, 
31. Holy Grail: "At first the seynt graal was the Holy Dish 

used at the Last Supper .... given by Pilate to Joseph (of 
Arimathea) .... used by Joseph to collect the blood flowing 
from the five wounds. Later this dish became the cup of the 
Last Supper" — Skeat: Joseph of Arimathea, E, E. T. S., no. 44, 
pp. 36-40. The early Perceval romances do not connect the 
Grail with the cup of the Last Supper. In Wolfram von Eschen- 
bach's Parzival the Grail is a precious stone. 

Section II (lines 45-67) 

This section tells how the Grail was brought to England by 
Joseph of Arimathea. 

52. Glastonbury: a town in Somersetshire. With Glaston- 
bury are connected legends of Arthur and his knights. Queen 
Guinevere, and many martyrs and saints, including Saint Patrick, 



NOTES 175 

who is said to have lived at Glastonbury for many years after 
his mission to Ireland and to have died there A. D. 472. 

53. Blossoms at Christmas: Joseph is said to have planted 
his staff. It took root and became the Glastonbury thorn, 
which bursts into leaf on Christmas eve. 

60. of old: Legendary history sets the date of Joseph's mis- 
sion at 63 A, D. He was accompanied by eleven other disciples 
of Saint Philip. 

61. Arviragus: The heathen king (reigned 44 to 72 a.d.) who 
rejected the mission but permitted the missionaries to build a 
Christian chapel. 

Section III (lines 68-165) 
Sir Percivale's sister and Sir Galahad. 

70. sister: In one of the French romances she is named 
Dindrane. All the main characteristics of the mystic female 
saint, like Catherine of Sienna, are embodied in her. — Brooke: 
Tennyson, 324. 

118. Rose-red: symbolizing the passion of religious love and 
zeal as the silver beam (white) symbolized immaculate purity. 
Note the color of the imagery used in connection with the 
various appearances of the Grail in lines 118, 189, 465-6, 512-513, 
622, 530, 690, 691, 839-849, and cf. 871 and note to 871. 

135. Galahad: According to Malory and most of the old ro- 
mances, Galahad is the son of Lancelot. Tennyson follows the 
old romances in making Galahad succeed through purity alone. 
Parsifal, however, who is the German Galahad (rather than the 
German Percivale) succeeds by sharing the sufferings of others, 
and not by purity alone. Parsifal's mother is Herzeleid (heart- 
pain). Cf. Tennyson's poem, Sir Galahad (written thirty-four 
years before The Holy GraM) and Charles Annesley: The 
Standard Operaglass, 337. 

135. In white armor: Malory (XITT, 3) says that Galahad 
was "in red arms." The old romances uniformly give red as 
the color of the armor of the Grail -hero. Tennyson chose white 
as the symbol of purity. Red signified heart's love. 

137. Arthur: According to Malory, (XIII, I) Lancelot, not 
Arthur, knights Galahad. 

145. enchantment: Cf. Malory, XIII, 4. 

149-165: Malory tells the same story, XVII, 7. 



176 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

Section IV (lines 166-360) 

This section tells of the Siege Perilous, the miracle of the 
Grail, the vows of the knights, and their departure on the quest. 
Cf. Malory XIII, I 8. 

168. Merlin: Cf. The Coming of Arthur, notes to 150 and 
279. 

175-176. There is no basis in the old romances for this 
statement. The figurative meaning is, perhaps, that Merlin the 
subtle, was finally overcome by greater subtlety, as recounted 
in the idyll of Merlin and Vivien. 

178. If I lose myself, I save myself: See Luke 9: 24; Mat- 
thew 10: 39. The meaning is. If I lose my lower self, I save 
my higher self. Daring to sit in Siege Perilous, Galahad met 
the supreme test of character, absolute trust in his highest in- 
tuition at the risk of his life. 

189. all over covered: Only the perfectly pure could endure 
to see the naked Grail. 

200. Sir Bors: Malory devotes his sixteenth book largely to 
Sir Bors. 

202. Gawain: In Malory (XIII, 7) it is Gawain, not Per- 
civale, who first swears to undertake the quest of, the Grail. Cf. 
738fl', 850ff. Also The Coming of Arthur, 319 and notes, The 
Passing of Arthur, 30ff. and note. 

204. Did Arthur take the vow? Cf. 275ff. 

206. not in hall: In Malory (XIII, 7) 'the king is present. 

232. four great zones: "The four zones represent human 
progress: the savage state of society; the state where man 
lords it over the beast; the full development of man; the 
progress towards spiritual ideals.*' Hallam Tennyson: Works of 
Alfred Tennyson, iii, 493. Cf. In Memoriam cxviii. 

297. The king foresees that the quest will break up the 
Order. 

300. Taliessin: a Cymric bard of the sixth century. 

301. The king knows that with the exception of Galahad 
and Percivale, the knights are not fit for the high quest; they 
are still in the third zone of progress (236) and their true work 
is still at home among their fellows, in the ordinary duties of 
life. Cf. 315.-320. 



NOTES 177 

Section V (lines 361-457) 

The adventures of Percivale. Cf. Malory XIV, 3-10. 

361. Percivale, like each of the other knights, is treated as 
a type. At first he is over-confident (361-367) ; then unduly 
eonvicted of sins (368-78) ; next he tries worship of beauty in 
nature (379-390); then domestic love (391-400); then earthly 
splendor (401-420) ; and popularity (421-439) ; each in turn 
fails to satisfy his thirst for holiness, for each is essentially 
selfish (445-457). Percivale fails because he never forgets him- 
self (456). 

Section VI (lines 458-539) 

Galahad's ministry to Percivale, who finally sees the Grail 
afar off for a moment, while witnessing the apotheosis of 
Galahad. 

466. Cf. Malory XVII, 20. 

469. thy sister taught me: The knowledge of spiritual mys- 
teries is transmitted by human agency. Cf. 485^-488. 

473-476. Blood-red: Repetition of significant words and 
phrases is characteristic of Tennyson's verse and is often very 
effective. Cf. 103-105. 

477. Shattering all evil customs: Galahad, though the purest 
and most ideal knight, is also powerful in good works. 

490-531. This lofty vision, and the passage 763-849, Tenny- 
son considered his best work in blank verse. 

Section VII (lines 540-631) 

The life of the village priest; Percivale recalls an important 
incident in his quest of the Grail. 

540-563. The narrow life of Ambrosius is set in immediate 
contrast to the life of Percivale and Galahad. Hal lam Tennyson: 
Works, iii, 495. 

564-631. The treatment of Ambrosius is entirely sympa- 
thetic, although his limitations are clearly shown. 

Section VIII (lines 632-707) 

The story of Sir Bors. Cf. Malory XVI, 6-17, for a different 
treatment of the story. 

633. pelican: The significance of the pelican is unselfishness. 



178 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

The pelican was believed to feed its young with its heart's blood. 
Cf. Malory XVI, L. Bors loses himself in love and care for his 
kinsman, Lancelot, and therefore sees the Grail. 

646. his former madness: Malory XI, 9; XII, 4. Lancelot 
was driven mad by the anger of Guinevere. Ths Grail cures his 
madness. 

661. paynim: pagan. Druids amid their circles, such as the 
circle at Stonehenge. 

667. a mocking fire. The only true fire, according to the 
Druids, was the sun. 

688. for myself: here, as in 651, the unselfishness of Bors 
is emphasized. 

Section IX (lines 708-737) 
The return of the knights. Cf. Malory XVII, 17. 
712. sit within the house: are remembered. 
714-715. ruin. The city has fallen into decay during the 
absence of the knights. 

Section X (lines 738-747) 
The story of Gawain. Cf. Malory XVI, 1-5; XVIII, I, for a 
different conception of Gawain. 

Section XI (lines 748-849) 

The story of Lancelot. Cf. Malory XIII, 17-20; XV; XVII, 
13-17. 

810. Carbonek: The castle where the Holy Grail was kept. 

871. these have seen: The five persons who saw the Grail 
were the Holy Nun, Galahad, Percivale, Bors, and Lancelot. Each 
perceived it according to his own nature and character, and the 
degree of perfection reached in his Christianity. To Lancelot it 
was covered, and accompanied by a fiery blast. Lancelot will 
hardly be sure that he saw it clearly. Percivale, who saw it 
afar off, will now retire to a monastery. The achievement has 
been a loss to Arthur's kingdom. 

Section XII (lines 850-916) 
Arthur sums up the results of the quest. 
907. and many a time they come: The truest visions come 



NOTES 179 

unbidden and unsought. Seeking for visions means neglect of 
duty. 

908. Until this earth: Cf. Tennyson's The Ancient Sage, 
229-239. 

916. I knew not all he meant: Pereivale does not under- 
stand fully Arthur's doctrine about visions (899-915) especially 
912ff. which Tennyson declared to be the spiritually central 
lines of the Idylls. Arthur staying at home and fulfilling his 
daily duty to men in the spirit of love and devotion gains a 
more intimate apprehension of God than do his knights in all 
their wanderings. He has his visions of truth in the day's work; 
nay more, at certain moments he transcends vision and knows 
God as a reality. Cf. Tennyson's The Higher Pantheism, 16-17. 
Cf. Brooke: Tennyson, 328-330. "The Holy Grail," Tennyson 
said, "is one of the most imaginative of my poems. I have 
expressed there my strong feeling as to the Reality of the Un- 
seen. The end, when the king speaks of his work and his 
visions, is intended to be the summing up of all in the highest 
note by the highest of human men." Alfred, Lord Tennyson, a 
Memoir by his Son, II, iv, 89-90. 



THE PASSING OF ARTHUE 

Preceding the death of Arthur, degenerate days had come 
upon his realm. Many of the knights of the Round Table had 
proved false to their vows. Sin had broken the fair fellowship, 
and Arthur had failed to establish the ideal to which his life 
had been devoted. The treacherous Modred had discovered and 
published the guilt of Guinevere and Lancelot. Guinevere had 
fled the court and taken refuge in the nunnery of Almesbury, 
seven and one half miles from Salisbury. King Arthur had pur- 
sued Lancelot to the north and in his absence Modred had 
revolted openly and had had himself proclaimed king. On his 
return south, Arthur had stopped at Almesbury for the farewell 
interview with Guinevere (described dramatically in the Idyll 
of that name) and had then gone in pursuit of Modred, to the 
westward. 



180 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

1. That story, etc.: An arcliaic beginning, a five-line sub-title: 
" The first Idyll and the last, I have heard Mr. Tennyson say, are 
intentionally more archaic than the others," Anne Thackeray 
Ritchie in Harper's Magazine, December, 1883. 

Bedivere: Cf. The Coming of Arthur, 173-17G and note. Cf. 
50-154, 150-153, 256-277 below for other characteristics of Be- 
divere. 

6. For: Cf. The Coming of Arthur, 5, 61, for the same archaic 
use of introductory " for." 

Off. Arthur's doubt and despair in the face of apparent 
defeat begin in the preceding Idyll of Guinevere (-447—449), 
where he says to the Queen: 

I marcli to meet my doom. 
Thou hast not made my life so sweet to me 
That I, the king, should greatly care to live. 

26. Cf. The Coming of Arthur, 11; The Last Tournam,€nt, 
122-125: 

Or whenever the fear lest this my realm, uprear'd 
By noble deeds at one with noble vows, 
From flat confusion and brute violences 
Reel back into the beast and be no more. 

And In Meyyioriam, cxviii: 

Move upward, working out the beast 
And let the ape and tiger die. 

28. I pass but shall not die: Cf. The Coming of Arthur, 420, 
421 and note. 

29. battle: Cf. note to 6. 

30-58. Gawain: Cf. The Coming of Arthur, note to 319; 
Gareth and Lynctte, 25, 408; Lancelot and Elaine, 550-561, 635, 
696-718, 1259. In The Holy Grail we read that "Gawain swore, 
and louder than the rest to search for the Grail," but that he 
soon grew weary and spent the time in pleasure-seeking, sub- 
sequently ridiculing all high endeavors " in foolish words." '* A 
reckless and irreverent knight was he." In Pelleas and Etarre, 
Gawain proves an easy victim to temptation, and becomes utterly 
faithless to his vows and his word of honor. Now, Gawain is 
represented as having discovered after death the vanity and 



NOTES 181 

worthlpssness of his pleasure-seeking life. Such apparitions were 
believed to presage imminent disaster. Malory's account is in 
XXI, 2, 3. 

35. an isle of rest: "the island valley of Avilion" of line 
427 below, "The Earthly Paradise," the "isle of the blessed," 
of the liritons. Identified with Glastonbury; but some old 
romances say, an ocean isle. 

5 Iff. This speech of the practical Bedivere, discounting super- 
natural influences, is in character, but the sentiment is modern 
rather than mediaeval. 

53. thy name: Cf. the lines To the Queen at the end of the 
Hylh. 

59. Modred: Cf. The Coming of Arthur, 322 and note; 
Gareth and Lynette, 28-32, 409; and the last line of Pelleas and 
Etarrc, 

And Modred thought, ' The time is hard at hand.' 

— i. e., the time to come out openly as a traitor. In Guinevere, 
9-64, we are told how Modred sowed discord in Arthur's realm, 
conspired with heathen traitors, brought scandal upon Lancelot 
and the Queen, and raised a rebellion against Arthur. Arthur 
refers to him as, 

" the man they call 
My sister's son — no kin of mine," 

and in 155-158 below disclaims all kinship with him. 

69. Roman wall: Cf. The Coming of Arthur, 511 and note. 
77. One lying in the dust at Almesbury: When the repentant 
Queen Guinevere, in hiding at the Almesbury nunnery, heard 
Arthur coming, 

prone from off her seat she fell 
And grovelled with her face against the floor, 

— Guinevere, 411-412. 
Long afterward 

. . . she, for her good deeds and her pure life. 

And for the power of ministration in her. 

And likewise for the high rank she had borne, 

Was chosen. Abbess, there, an Abbess lived 

For three brief years, and there, an Abbess, past 

To where beyond these voices there is peace. 

— Guinevere, 687-692. 



182 IDYLLS OF THE KING 

81. Lyonesse: Cf. Lancelot and Elaine, 35 and note. 

94. This last dim-weird battle: Cf. the bright picture of 
Arthur's first battle. The Coming of Arthur, 95-123. 

108-110. Cf. the battle lyric in The Coming of Arthur, 481- 
501. 

157. My house: Cf. Luke xii, 49, 50. 

170. So all day long: Here began Tennyson's Morte d' Arthur 
of the 1842 volume. 

172. King Arthur's Table: Cf. The Coming of Arthur, note 
to 17. 

189. Camelot: Cf. Gareth and Lynette, note to 185. 

191. Merlin: Cf. The Coming of Arthur, notes to 150, 279, 
and 420. 

195. Excalibur: Cf. The Coming of Arthur, notes to 294, 
302, and 304. 

199. clothed in white samite: Cf. The Coming of Arthur, 284. 

272. Maiden of the Lake: Cf. The Coming of Arthur, notes 
to 282 and 294. 

366. Three Queens: Cf. The Coming of Arthur, 275 and 
note. 

401. The holy Elders: Cf. Matthew ii, 2-11. 

403. an image of the mighty world: Cf. The Coming of 
Arthur, note to 17. 

406. other minds: strangers to Arthur's ideals. Cf. note to 5. 

408-409. in many ways: There is no one final statement of 
truth for all. Cf. The Coming of Arthur, note to 401. This line 
occurs in The Coming of Arthur, 508. 

410. Lest one good custom, etc.: another nineteenth century 
idea. Even a good custom (like chivalry) may become harmful 
if persisted in too long. 

Our little systems have their day. 
They have their day and cease to be. 

— In Memoriam, Introduction, stanza 5. 

435. ere her death: The ancient popular belief that the swan 
sings just before its death is without foundation. 

445. Cf. The Coming of Arthur, 410 and note to 401. 

455. Cf. The Coming of Arthur, 275-278. 

469. The era of Arthur, typified in the year, is thus com- 
plete. Cf. The Coming of Arthur, 208-210. 

(3) 



